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Michael Porter Jr., Egor D\u00ebmin, Day\u2019Ron Sharpe and Noah Clowney welcome Julius Randle this season.<\/p>\n
Offseason Recap<\/a><\/p>\n \u2022 Last Season: 20-62 (13th in East, missed postseason) Season Outlook<\/p>\n After three straight seasons where they lost more games than the year prior, the Nets might finally be ready to take a step forward. Julius Randle will complement Michael Porter Jr. well on offense and raise the overall floor.<\/p>\n But the spotlight remains on the Nets\u2019 group of five second-year players that they selected in the first round of the 2025 Draft<\/a>. The only one of the five who received any votes for first or second team All-Rookie was Egor D\u00ebmin, who got two second-team votes. We can\u2019t expect all of them to make giant leaps in Year 2, but the Nets need to see real progress from more than one of the five.<\/p>\n Of course, while there\u2019s nowhere to go but up, a step forward doesn\u2019t mean the Nets will compete for a playoff or SoFi NBA Play-In Tournament spot. The Eastern Conference has improved overall, and this team will likely need major development from its young players to reach the postseason.<\/p>\n Breakout Candidate: Day\u2019Ron Sharpe<\/p>\n The Nets have lost more than twice as many games as they\u2019ve won over the last three seasons. But they\u2019ve actually outscored their opponents (by 0.4 points per 100 possessions) with Sharpe on the floor over that stretch, while getting outscored by 9.0 per 100 in his minutes off the floor. He\u2019s also one of only five players who\u2019ve played at least 750 minutes and averaged at least 15 points and 12 rebounds per 36 in each of the last three seasons.<\/p>\n But for his whole career, Sharpe has been stuck behind Nic Claxton, who\u2019s now in Chicago. Maybe his best role is backup center. Most of that on-off differential has come on defense (109.2 vs. 117.1 allowed per 100), in part because he\u2019s been defending against other backups. But he\u2019s still just 24 years old, and this season provides Sharpe with an opportunity to prove that he can make an impact for more than just 18 or 20 minutes per game.<\/p>\n 1 Number To Know<\/p>\n 9% \u2014 According to tracking data, only 9% of Porter\u2019s 3-point attempts were wide open last season. That was down from 20% with Denver in 2024-25 and was the lowest rate, by a wide margin, among 307 players with at least 100 total 3-point attempts. The next lowest rate belonged to Kevin Durant, who was wide open on 15% of his 3s.<\/p>\n Randle isn\u2019t on Nikola Joki\u0107\u2019s level when it comes to passing, but he ranks fourth (behind Joki\u0107, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Luka Don\u010di\u0107) in total assists on 3-pointers over the last seven years. He should get Porter some more open looks and, along with his own scoring, make the Nets a more efficient offensive team. They scored 1.5 fewer points per 100 possessions than any other team last season, when they were the only team that ranked in the bottom five in field goal percentage in the paint (55.3%, 30th), mid-range field goal percentage (37.1%, 28th) and 3-point percentage (34.0%, 30th).<\/p>\n 5 Must-See Matchups<\/p>\n \u2022 Nov. 2: Nets vs. Knicks \u2014 A sign of improvement would be a win against the Knicks, to whom the Nets have lost 14 straight games. They\u2019ll be at a rest disadvantage for three of this season\u2019s four meetings, including this first one at Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n \u2022 Nov. 23: Nets vs. Wolves \u2013\u2013 Randle makes his return to Minnesota in Week 6. The Nets\u2019 visit to the Target Center last December was one of their best wins of the season, and this one will be the start of a four-game trip.<\/p>\n \u2022 Dec. 16: Mavs vs. Nets \u2014 There have been three 50-point performances (all from the home team) at Barclays Center. Two of the three belong to Kyrie Irving, who\u2019s played there just once (scoring 36 points in a Mavs win) since leaving the Nets in 2023.<\/p>\n \u2022 Feb. 25: Sixers vs. Nets \u2014 The Sixers\u2019 first game in Brooklyn (Nov. 16) is the second game of a back-to-back for the visitors. The February meeting is the first game after the All-Star break for both teams, so it\u2019s more likely that all of Philly\u2019s stars will be in the lineup.<\/p>\n \u2022 Mar. 21: Kings vs. Nets \u2014 When the Nets selected Mikel Brown Jr. with the No. 6 overall pick in this year\u2019s draft, they passed on Darius Acuff Jr., whom the Kings took at No. 7. Nets fans will get a first-hand look at what they\u2019re missing in Week 22.<\/p>\n > Complete Regular Season Schedule<\/a><\/p>\n Preseason Storylines<\/p>\n Randle is the new piece, and it will be interesting to see how much he and Porter connect in the Nets\u2019 offense. If Sharpe is the starting center, he could be going head-to-head with some All-Star big men.<\/p>\n But the focus should be on the second-year guys and how much they\u2019ve improved after a year in the league and a summer of working on their game. D\u00ebmin seemingly has the tools to be a long-time starter, but needs to play bigger. Nolan Traor\u00e9 has the quickness to bend defenses, but needs to be stronger with the ball. And Drake Powell needs to show that he can shoot.<\/p>\n > Complete Preseason Schedule<\/a><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n John Schuhmann has covered the NBA for more than 20 years. You can e-mail him\u00a0here<\/a>, find his\u00a0archive here\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0follow him on Bluesky.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Porter Jr., Egor D\u00ebmin, Day\u2019Ron Sharpe and Noah Clowney welcome Julius Randle this season. Offseason Recap \u2022…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,132138,99,132140,132139,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-354359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-nets-season-preview","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-nets-preview","tag-nets-season-preview","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u2022 Key Additions: Tyler Bilodeau, Mikel Brown Jr., Keon Ellis, Joshua Jefferson, Julius Randle, Moritz Wagner
\u2022 Every Nets move this offseason<\/a><\/p>\n