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It’s not just one-third of the way through the NBA season, but the eve of the holiday season.
What are the Nets hoping to find under the tree?
After Brooklyn forward Dorian Finney-Smith got the best possible Christmas present days early with the long-awaited release of his father, Elbert, from Greensville Correctional Center after 28 years, nine months and 10 days in prison — keeping it a buck, that is family and more meaningful than any game — one wonders what the franchise is looking forward to over the final two-thirds of the campaign:
Consistency, clarity and a clean bill of health.
The season is still young: The Nets (13-15) moved past the first trimester Friday night as they played Game No. 28. And they’ve been wildly inconsistent, about as up-and-down as a Great Adventure roller coaster. Or some choppy seas out in the Atlantic.
The Nets followed a mid-November three-game losing streak by winning seven of their next nine. But showing they hadn’t truly turned a corner, they promptly dropped their next five straight including Friday night’s 122-117 loss to the defending champion Nuggets.
“Never too high, never too low, right?” veteran point guard Spencer Dinwiddie said. “The NBA season has ebbs and flows. It’s an 82-game season. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. There’s going to be some losing streaks, some win streaks. It’s just trying to capitalize on the totality of the season.”
The Nets appeared to get worn down on their grueling five-game West Coast gantlet, both physically and mentally. Their rebounding — a surprising strength at the start of the season — cratered as they started getting pushed around. And being shorthanded against Western Conference contenders (including the Suns, Nuggets and Warriors) clearly took its toll.
“We played some really good teams, and I think our focus just has to be a little better,” Dinwiddie said.
The Nets’ shot selection went to hell — one of the worst midrange-shooting teams in the league all too often settled for exactly those looks — and Mikal Bridges going into an offensive funk. But more than tactics, their issue was toughness.
“I felt like we weren’t competing at a high level,” Dennis Smith Jr. said. “Honestly, I just feel like we went out there and we were just going through the game, almost like we’re just trying to get the games over with, you know?
“We’ve got to come in every game and feel that we can win, and understand that ain’t nobody gonna give anything to us. Everything’s got to be taken. So we get that mentality back, I think we’ll get back on the right track.”
Part of that lack of consistency is a lack of health. There is a causality there.
“We’ve paid a heavy toll of, in my opinion, stretching our group thin,” Jacque Vaughn said. “I think going into the Jazz game, we had emptied our tank and had nothing left.”
The Nets are tied for fifth in the league in most players to have missed games (11) and sixth in salary paid out to injured players ($15.96 million), per Spotrac.
Ben Simmons, the only player on the roster who has made an All-Star game, already has missed 22 games this season, and is expected to be out for a couple more weeks due to a nerve impingement in his back.
“It’s probably one of the most frustrating points of my career, just because I want to be able to help my team win and compete,” Simmons said Friday. “Honestly, I wish it was a sprained ankle. It’s one of those things where you just don’t know what time. But we’ve seen a lot of progress.”
The Nets already have paid Simmons (who is due to make $37.89 million in 2023-24) more than $10 million for games he has missed this season.
Getting him healthy is a top priority, and not just to ensure the Nets reach the play-in round (or dare they dream, to climb into the playoffs).
Simmons will have a huge expiring contract come next summer, and if he plays well in the second half of the season, his deal could be more palatable and require fewer sweeteners to move, should the Nets go that route.
Smith, the energizer backup point guard and best defensive player off the bench, has missed 14 games. He returned Friday from a back injury.
“It’s the NBA season, man. It’s like life: ups and downs,” Smith said. “I don’t look at it as tough. S–t, I’ve been blessed with enough strength to deal with it. I’ll be alright.”
The Nets’ top offensive threat off the bench, Lonnie Walker IV — who had played himself into the Sixth Man of the Year conversation — still is working toward a return to the floor, now having missed 10 games because of hamstring woes.
And leading scorer Cam Thomas and starting center Nic Claxton missed nine games apiece earlier in the season due to injuries.
The Nets desperately need to get and stay fit.
Despite all the hand-wringing and pearl-clutching by Nets fans, the fact is everybody in the building — and frankly, around the league — knew this was always going to be the equivalent of a gap year. Not a full-on rebuild, more an on-the-fly retooling or reshuffling of the deck.
From top to bottom, this team — and franchise — can use some clarity.
Vaughn has some tough calls to make as far as his starting lineup.
After seeing Finney-Smith with his toughness and catch-and-shoot ability in the lineup for more than 100 minutes, Vaughn has said he wants to see Thomas with his iso scoring punch for a similar sample.
Vaughn needs clarity on what works better, and has to figure a way to get his underachieving defense to finally live up to its potential.
General manager Sean Marks has some decisions to make as well.
Claxton will be an unrestricted free agent this summer. League personnel have told The Post that Claxton will get more than $100 million. But how much more? How high can Marks go?
Then, after sources told The Post the Nets rejected an offer of two first-round picks in exchange for Finney-Smith last season and offers for Dinwiddie and Royce O’Neale as well, does Marks move any of those players at February’s trade deadline?
And both he and Nets owner Joe Tsai have to be honest with themselves in assessing just how far away this team is.
The Nets never were in on pursuing superstar Damian Lillard (or Miami’s Tyler Herro) this past summer. The 33-year-old Lillard did not fit their timeline, and Herro’s bloated contract would hinder their progress.
But Donovan Mitchell is a different story.
The New York product declined to ink an extension in Cleveland last summer, and though he certainly could sign one this coming summer, reports suggest that is unlikely.
The expectation is the Cavaliers won’t move Mitchell until they absolutely have to, but it seems they could reach that “have to” event horizon as soon as they exit the playoffs.
By then, with Mitchell entering the final year of his contract (he has a player option in 2025-26), the Nets need to know 1) his willingness to sign with them long-term, 2) what he would cost to get, and 3) their appetite for paying that price.
That’s not to imply the Nets must trade Simmons at all costs (wasting picks Marks has assiduously collected) or must star-chase (at the risk of emptying all their draft capital). It means they need to spend the rest of this season getting clarity for how to proceed next season.
The Nets’ $4 billion valuation, per Sportico, is up from the $3.25 billion Tsai paid in 2019, but their modest 17 percent increase since 2020 is the lowest in the league. That’s largely because of the departure of stars James Harden, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant.
With great ability comes great accountability, and before the Nets hitch their future to another superstar, they need to understand all the variables.
If they can get anything over the final two-thirds of this season, they need clarity to make the next call the right one.