After acquiring Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce last off-season, the Brooklyn Nets were expected to compete for the NBA Championship this past season. Instead, they barely kept their heads above water and were bounced in the first round of the playoffs. Brook Lopez’s season-ending injury certainly factored into that disappointing finish but so did the continuing decline of aging veterans, Garnett and Pierce.
Brooklyn has spent a ton of money the past couple of years to try and build a title contender but just haven’t gotten the job done. What will their next step be this off-season?
Brooklyn Nets (44-38 last year)
2014-15 Projected Depth Chart:
C: Brook Lopez/*Andray Blatche
PF: Kevin Garnett/Mirza Teletovic/Mason Plumlee
SF: *Alan Anderson/*Andrei Kirilenko
SG: Joe Johnson/Marcus Thornton
PG: Deron Williams/Marquis Teague/^Jorge Gutierrez
NBA Free Agents:
SF-Paul Pierce (UFA)
PG-Shaun Livingston (UFA)
C-Jason Collins (UFA)
*SF-Alan Anderson (PO)
*SF-Andrei Kirilenko (PO)
*C-Andray Blatche (PO)
2014-15 Team Salary: Approximately $88.5 million
Team Needs:
1. Swing for the fences again:
Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, Garnett, Pierce; the Nets front office has been extremely aggressive in bringing in veteran talent to try and immediately build a title contender. It obviously hasn’t panned out as expected but since the team is so massively over the cap, there only hope is to take another stab at it this off-season.
Nobody is touching Joe Johnson’s contract since he is still owed $48 million over the next two years (GULP!) However, the Nets should actively try to deal the expiring contracts of Garnett ($12 million) or Marcus Thornton ($8.7 million) in hopes of finding upgrades. Finding a suitor for KG will be difficult but Thornton or even Mirza Teletovic’s expiring deal ($3.4 million) could be used to net Brooklyn another quality veteran.
2. Small Forward:
With Pierce a free agent and Kirilenko and Anderson holding player options on their deals, the Nets need to solidify their small forward position. Unless Pierce is willing to take a massive pay cut, I cannot see him returning to the Nets. Anderson is due to an extension and could look elsewhere to find a bigger contract while AK47 might be better off testing the market as well.
3. Backup Point Guard:
With Shaun Livingston a free agent, the Nets need to either re-sign him or find a backup to Deron Williams since neither Marquis Teague or Jorge Gutierrez are real capable second unit point guards. Brooklyn has to find a cheap option in free agency to fill this void which is why bringing back Livingston seems to make the most sense.
OTHER NBA OFF-SEASON TEAM NEEDS PAGES:
ATLANTA HAWKS
David Kay is a senior feature NBA Draft, NBA, and college basketball writer for the Sports Bank. He also heads up the NBA and college basketball material at Walter Football.com and is a former contributor at The Washington Times Communities. David has appeared on numerous national radio programs spanning from Cleveland to New Orleans to Milwaukee to Honolulu. He also had the most accurate 2011 NBA Mock Draft and the most accurate 2012 NBA Mock Draft on the internet (Yup, repeat champ… #humblebrag), and finished with the second most accurate 2013 NBA Mock Draft (nearly a three-peat.) You can follow him on Twitter at David_Kmiecik.