The Brooklyn Nets will be back at work on Saturday with the start of training camp. They’re getting a few days head start compared to the rest of the NBA in consideration of their trip to China for two games against the Los Angeles Lakers. The Nets will play their first preseason game on Friday, Oct. 4.
Here’s a few things they may be focusing on between now and then during sessions at HSS Training Center:
BACKCOURT BLEND
The Nets return two primary backcourt pieces in Caris LeVert and Spencer Dinwiddie to team with the newly arrived Kyrie Irving.
While the Nets received excellent point guard play from D’Angelo Russell last year on the way to his first All-Star Game appearance, Irving is a six-time All-Star and two-time All-NBA selection, including a Second Team pick last season when he averaged 23.8 points, 6.9 assists and 5.0 rebounds while shooting 40.1 percent from 3-point range and 48.7 percent overall.
Irving brings a different profile to the position. While Russell crafted one of the league’s elite mid-range games and elevated his 3-point shooting, Irving is a career 39.0 percent 3-point shooter who is more likely to get to the rim on his drives.
LeVert seems bound to start alongside Irving after he wrapped up the 2018-19 season flashing the same elite form he did before a foot injury sidelined him for three months. In the five-game playoff series against Philadelphia, LeVert averaged 21.8 points. 5.0 rebounds and 2.8 assists while shooting 49.2 percent overall and 46.2 percent from 3-point range.
Dinwiddie was one of the league’s top sixth men last season — second among all bench players in both points and assists — and is capable of playing either guard spot to share the floor with either Irving or LeVert.
SORTING AND STARTING AT THE 4
So, it’s an interesting mix here after the Nets started four different players at this spot in 2018-19. The only one returning is Rodions Kurucs, who started 46 games as a rookie, averaging 8.5 points and 3.9 rebounds. Kurucs, who was listed at 210 pounds last season, looked noticeably bigger at Summer League, where he was up to 222. After he flashed some explosiveness last season, a bulked up Kurucs should be better equipped to match up with stronger forwards.
Then there are the two new arrivals: Taurean Prince and Wilson Chandler. At 6-foot-8 and 220 pounds, Prince is similar in size to the veteran DeMarre Carroll, who the Nets used, but did not want to overuse, at the 4 spot. Prince shot 38.7 percent from 3-point range for the Hawks the last two seasons. How much the Nets decide to use Prince at either the 3 or the 4 is one of the variables that will help determine the overall rotations.
Chandler, entering his 12th NBA season (he missed all of the 2015-16 season due to injury) is also traditionally a small forward, but seems more likely to fit in at the 4 considering Brooklyn’s playing style and roster makeup, not to mention the NBA’s overall trends toward smaller lineups and perimeter-oriented players at the position. He’s 6-9 and 225 pounds, and split time between the 76ers and the Clippers last season after a long run as a core piece in Denver. But after participating in the preseason, Chandler will be out for 25 games serving a suspension for PED usage.
MANNING THE MIDDLE
Will the Nets go with the newly acquired veteran DeAndre Jordan as the starting center, or stick with the young incumbent Jarrett Allen? That’s something to be sorted out through training camp and the preseason.
Jordan, a three-time All-NBA selection and two-time All-Defensive first teamer, offers a more experienced, more physical option. Allen is still developing and took positive steps forward in his second pro season, starting all 80 games he played in 2018-19 and offering plenty of upside to come.
Either way, there will be significant minutes for both. Kenny Atkinson had no problem playing matchups last year, elevating veteran Ed Davis’ minutes off the bench when he thought the Nets needed that presence. One element of the center equation that may be missing this season is the use of an extreme small-ball 5 with the departure of the player most suited to that usage, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson.
HANDLING HARRIS
With his participation for USA Basketball in the FIBA World Cup, Joe Harris had a busy late summer. It began with his selection for the USA Select Team that was due to train with the National Team in Las Vegas beginning in early August, but Harris was elevated to the National Team roster before those sessions even started, and ended up sticking with the team through the tournament, a six-week stint that included two weeks in China for the tournament. He returned to the United States less than two weeks ago. The Nets themselves are bound for China in a week for two preseason games against the Lakers.
How will the organization weigh the value of a little rest for Harris before the long season starts vs. court time and prep with his teammates?
CLAXTON’S ROLE
He didn’t say it quite this way, but GM Sean Marks made it clear in his post-draft press conference that the Nets are done low-balling expectations for their own rookies. Two years in a row, players looked at as developmental projects likely to spend most of their time in the G League have ended up as Nets starters as rookies: first Jarrett Allen and then Rodions Kurucs.
“I think we’ve run into some problems with that in the past, if we’ve said, ‘he’s going to play in the G League,’ or he’s going to do this or he’s going to do that when all of a sudden we get a guy like for instance take Rodi last year, he rose to the occasion,” said Marks. “I never want to limit any of the guys we have in here.”
So what role awaits for rookie forward/center Nic Claxton? Allen and Kurucs both came along quickly, but also seized opportunities that came with some positional need. As long as Allen and Jordan remain healthy, that’s less likely to be the case with Claxton. If the second-round pick — 31st overall — forces his way into the conversation, that will be a pleasant surprise, and another feather in the cap for the front office’s scouting and drafting record.