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By Not Chasing Wins, the Brooklyn Nets Will Be Winners
- Updated: October 27, 2016
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — There’s something different about these Brooklyn Nets.
The faces, obviously. They have a new head coach, their sixth since 2012, in Kenny Atkinson. General manager Sean Marks is barely a half-year into his tenure. Just five of Brooklyn’s players—Bojan Bogdanovic, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Sean Kilpatrick, Brook Lopez and Chris McCullough—were on the roster last season.
Only two—Bogdanovic and Lopez—played for the team in 2014-15.
But this difference cannot be measured by roster and front-office turnover. It’s more radical than that—visible, but also instinctual. You step into their swanky new practice facility and feel it. You watch Brooklyn players and coaches interact and sense it.
The culture is changing.
It has changed.
For the first time in a long time, the Nets aren’t chasing wins and impractical playoff success. They are rebuilding, immediately and wholly—a thorough reset that emphasizes so much more than basketball.
Marks is at the heart of this shift. He arrived with eyes on the bigger picture and stressed, in June, the importance of forging camaraderie, per the New York Post’s Brian Lewis: “I know a little bit of the intricacies that make that atmosphere. And again, it’s not something that happens overnight, but there’s a few little things that can be done quickly, now and immediately, that our players in Brooklyn know that something’s different in the air here.”
Marks wasted little time putting his plan into action. He traded proven contributor Thaddeus Young for first-round pick Caris LeVert, something the previous regime likely wouldn’t have considered. And while the Nets signed a collection of veterans in free agency, they also threw offer sheets at up-and-comers Allen Crabbe and Tyler Johnson (the Portland Trail Blazers and Miami Heat matched those respective offers for the restricted free agents).
Besides, the arrival of those veterans is an integral part of development. They provide steadying hands for inexperienced teammates, yes, but Brooklyn’s ability to sell Trevor Booker, Randy Foye, Jeremy Lin et al. on a work-in-progress is also evidence of how far it has already come.
“Some places where you’re rebuilding, it’s turmoil from top to bottom,” Foye said. “Management doesn’t know if they’re going to have their jobs. Coaches don’t know if they’re going to have their jobs. Here, we’re rebuilding, but at the same time we’re trying to be competitive. The young guys are learning, the older guys are teaching. There’s no turmoil.
“Everyone’s secure here.”
That’s important.
Hollis-Jefferson, for example, needs to know he can freely work on his jumper during games without the threat of being benched for inefficiency; for that to happen, Atkinson needs to know he has the power to ride out mistakes and growing pains at the expense of wins; and for that to happen, Marks needs to know his rebuild isn’t being entirely dictated by Brooklyn forfeiting control of its next two first-round picks.
The Nets are asking established talent on short-term deals to embrace a new system. Players chasing new contracts who don’t fit into the long-term plan must, at times, cede minutes and touches to those who do.
You need the right personalities in place for those inevitable transitions to go over smoothly. Brooklyn believes it has found them.
“I was just happy with the effort, with these guys really buying into what we’re doing,” Atkinson said of the preseason. “And that’s the whole program. We’re demanding a lot. We’re demanding maybe more than they’re …
