Brutal first-round sweep exposes Nets' giant holes
With defense, shooting and rim protection, the Nets have the structure of a contender. They're just missing the stars.
Brooklyn bowed out in a four-game first-round sweep at the hands of the 76ers, losing Game 4, 96-88, Saturday. A six-minute scoreless stretch highlighted the fundamental weakness of the Nets: They have excellent role players, but they only have role players.
Cameron Johnson and Mikal Bridges are both really nice three-and-D forwards who can make three-pointers, but they were held to 11 and 17 points, respectively, in Game 4. That overstates Bridges' scoring — he hit two threes in the final 13 seconds, with the game well out of reach. He's just not a great one-on-one scorer.
Bridges upped his scoring after the midseason trade from Phoenix from him and Johnson to Brooklyn, going from 17.1 points per game to 26.2. But he's not really a playmaker — he's a Scottie Pippen, not a Michael Jordan.
In fact, Brooklyn is full of three-and-D specialists. Besides Johnson and Bridges, they've got Dorian Finney-Smith and Royce O'Neale. They also have a lot of three-point specialists: Seth Curry, Joe Harris and Yuta Watanabe. And in Nic Claxton, they have an offensively limited center who's a great shot-blocker.
What they're missing is the hardest thing to find in the NBA: a star offensive creator. Someone like Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving or James Harden, all of whom Brooklyn had to trade away in the past 14 months. Spencer Dinwiddie had 20 points in Saturday's loss, but he's really better suited to a sixth man role.
Ultimately, the Nets have a lot of pieces that are valuable to a contender. But they're less valuable on a team that was pretty mediocre after dealing its superstars — they went 12-15 after Bridges and Johnson arrived.
With most of their own first-round picks going to Houston due to the Harden trade, and the picks they're owed from Phoenix likely coming late in the first round, there's no obvious path to a superstar.
That's why if a team is truly offering four first-round picks for Bridges — or any enticing pick package for literally any player on the roster — the Nets should strongly consider it. Because at the end of the day, the skeleton of a contender is just a skeleton.
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