Top 5 Offseason Priorities for the Brooklyn Nets

The Brooklyn Nets don’t own a first-round draft pick until 2019, but they do own a miserable 21-61 final record for the 2015-16 season.

Still, it isn’t all bad. With a new general manager, a new head coach who has received glowing reviews from around the league and more cap space than they’ve had in a long while, the Nets have some reasons for optimism.

So let’s help them spend that money and figure out how to go from being the new kid in New York to the big kid on the block.  

5. Be Sane

Sunday, the Nets ignored all the famous names and quietly hired Atlanta Hawks assistant coach Kenny Atkinson to take over as head coach.

Atkinson has been praised for his player development skills and more by Charlotte Hornets guard Jeremy Lin (per the New York Daily News’ Frank Isola), ESPN commentator Jeff Van Gundy and many Atlanta Hawks stars (per the New York Post’s Brian Lewis). It seems like a calm, sensible decision, made by new GM Sean Marks, who was bred in the San Antonio Spurs organization’s calm, sensible tradition.

Brooklyn fans should be soothed by this, considering the recent history of the team’s management has been characterized by irresponsible lunacy. 

The Nets have already burned through five head coaches since moving from New Jersey to Brooklyn prior to the 2012-13 season; Atkinson is the sixth. Their draft picks were all traded away for past-their-prime stars. The owner, Mikhail Prokhorov, is getting on Vladimir Putin’s last nerve. It’s been weird for years.

It’s conceivable that the Nets could try to reverse their current conundrum by trading their big-ticket item, Brook Lopez, for some draft picks. It’s not a heinous idea. 

Yet the hirings of Marks and Atkinson seem to indicate “The Age of Sensibility” has begun in Brooklyn, and trading into the 2016 draft doesn’t make a great deal of sense because it’s a shallow class.

Also, the Nets have more cap space to play with than a lot of teams. They only have $40.8 million of guaranteed salary to pay this upcoming season—$46.9 million at most if both Shane Larkin and Wayne Ellington opt in and if the team keeps Jarrett Jack at $6.3 million instead of cutting him loose with only the $500,000 he’s guaranteed.

The salary cap is expected to go up to approximately $89 million. That leaves Brooklyn with between $42.1 and $48.2 million to drop on free agents. They can afford to upgrade their roster sensibly, build around Lopez and Thaddeus Young and ride out the next few seasons in style while they wait for the wounds of the Billy King era to heal. 

4. Get Shane Larkin To Opt In

I was a big fan of point guard Shane Larkin during his one year with the New York Knicks, and I remain a believer despite some inconsistent play in Brooklyn this season.

Larkin is blazing fast and not afraid of contact, so he can break down defenses and score in the paint. He has crazy hops, quick hands and great court vision. He can be a scrappy defender who snatches opponents’ passes out of the stratosphere, …

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