Oddmakers project the Nets will win fewer than 25 games. The delusionally confident Nets think they can win twice that many.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve set it as a goal, talking about it privately and now publicly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the goal from Day 1. We said our goal is to get 50 wins,\u201d Terance Mann said Monday when asked by The Post about trying to lead a young, inexperienced group that, heretofore, has no idea how to win.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you\u2019re going to have to go in there with the mentality that we\u2019re going to get 50 wins. And that\u2019s through the guys with years [of experience] leading that. Most of us came from winning situations, so we know what it takes, and that\u2019s just what we\u2019re going to do.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Michael Porter Jr. (17) of the Brooklyn Nets puts up a shot during the second half of a game against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday, March 1, 2026, at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the start of training camp, so hope springs eternal. It just isn\u2019t shared by many outside of the Nets locker room.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And they\u2019re fine with that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Their projected win total opened at just 19.5 and has climbed to 24.5 behind encouraging summers from 20-year-olds Egor D\u00ebmin and Mikel Brown Jr., and what should be a potent frontcourt duo of vets Michael Porter Jr. and Julius Randle.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMan, at the end of the day, we\u2019re just trying to win,\u201d Brown said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Granted, they\u2019re still projected to be among the league\u2019s worst teams.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Still, Porter was the first Net to publicly predict a 50-win campaign. And even though he admits his answer was to a leading question by controversial streamer N3on, Porter said what he said, and is standing by it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I mean the question was framed like he said, \u2018Can you guys win 50 games?\u2019 Of course I\u2019m not going to say, \u2018No, we can\u2019t win 50 games,\u2019\u201d Porter said. \u201cAnd I do genuinely believe you\u2019re supposed to go out on the floor every night with delusional confidence and compete to win. And I do think we have the players that every single night our goal should be to win. And we can win.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Julius Randle of the Brooklyn Nets speaks during a press conference at Brooklyn Nets Media Day at the Brooklyn Nets HSS Training Center in New York, Monday, September 28, 2026. Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, obviously the NBA is stacked right now. The Eastern Conference is stacked. There\u2019s a lot of good teams. But we definitely did nothing but get better last year. And there were a lot of games that we were in last year that we could\u2019ve won. So for me, we have no choice but to go up. And why not shoot for the stars.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Nets might have a better chance of reaching the stars than winning 50 games, something they\u2019ve done exactly once in their NBA history, en route to the 2002 Finals.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Porter is right in that they should be better.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Their rookies suffered through the growing pains of a league-high 6,716 minutes last season. The only four teams in the past decade to play rookies more saw their win totals jump by 10.5 victories the next season, and another ten wins the next.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Brooklyn Nets\u2019 Terance Mann is photographed during Media Day at the HSS Training Center on Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, in Brooklyn, N.Y. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n
That \u2014 plus Randle\u2019s on-ball scoring and ability as a floor-raiser \u2014 is why the incoming All-Star had vowed they can \u201cshock the world.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt starts [Tuesday] with training camp and we just build from there. Stack days, continue to improve, come in with the right focus every single day. For me, when I do that and I\u2019ve done that in my career, the teams that I\u2019ve been a part of have done that\u2026 the results always follow,\u201d Randle said. \u201cWe have great leadership in the coaching staff with Jordi [Fern\u00e1ndez] and everybody else. We have the talent.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFollow all the basketball buzz in Brooklyn\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Nets by Brian Lewis, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really just about the mindset, and not just coming in every single day, but coming in with intention and purpose, understanding things aren\u2019t always going to be easy and knowing how to navigate those and showing up to work the same way whether you lose by 20 or win by 20, nothing changes, the process stays the same. So the biggest thing for us is just falling in love with the journey every single day, falling in love with the process and the results will follow.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
And maintaining that delusional confidence, even if the losses chip away at it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oddmakers project the Nets will win fewer than 25 games. The delusionally confident Nets think they can win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,355,99,21,9,24,63,319],"class_list":["post-359601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-nets","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-nba","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359601","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=359601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}