First, the shoulders sag. Then the heads drop. The ball sticks, defensive assignments get lost, and the Nets begin to resemble five players waiting for a bad night to end.<\/p>\n
Brooklyn was always going to have ugly nights. The NBA\u2019s youngest roster opened against demanding opponents, and nobody should be grading this group against a championship standard. But a rebuilding team still needs habits it can trust when the shots stop falling.<\/p>\n
Through their first five games, the Nets too often lost those along with the lead.<\/p>\n
That demands answers from head coach Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez and his players. It also demands scrutiny of the roster general manager Sean Marks assembled, and the direction owner Joe Tsai continues to endorse.<\/p>\n
Because at some point, rebuilding has to look like building something.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think just generally speaking, when stuff doesn\u2019t go our way, we kind of put our head down a little bit and lose our connectivity,\u201d Moritz Wagner said after Friday\u2019s loss to the Detroit Pistons. \u201cAnd I think that\u2019s one of our staples. And we worked way too hard all summer and probably set a much higher standard than that for ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fern\u00e1ndez saw \u201cdropping shoulders and not the same energy\u201d when the Pistons responded to Brooklyn\u2019s strong start. Julius Randle described the same retreat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we get adversity right now as a group and it just deflates us as a team,\u201d Randle said.<\/p>\n
These are the Nets describing their own problem. The standard they\u2019re struggling to meet is one they set themselves.<\/p>\n
The numbers give that frustration some shape. Through Friday, Brooklyn was allowing 121.2 points per game, committing 19.2 turnovers and losing by an average of 11 points.<\/p>\n
Still, there were meaningful exceptions to the bleak picture. The Nets pushed Cleveland to the closing seconds and took Boston to overtime before Jayson Tatum\u2019s buzzer-beater. Those efforts belong in any honest assessment of the group.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s also not all bad. I want to get rid of that narrative,\u201d Wagner said. \u201cWe\u2019re close. I\u2019m convinced. I think we\u2019re a really good team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indiana and Detroit exposed the distance still to travel. Brooklyn led after the first quarter against both, then was outscored by a combined 149-92 over the second and third periods. The opening energy gave way to stretches in which the Nets struggled to generate good shots or interrupt an opponent\u2019s run.<\/p>\n
A missed assignment doesn\u2019t establish that a player has stopped trying. Confusion can look like passivity, particularly when a young team is facing a defense it cannot solve. Randle offered a more useful explanation than simply demanding that everyone play harder.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like we\u2019re just kind of stuck and then we\u2019re just sitting there watching each other,\u201d Randle said.<\/p>\n
Fern\u00e1ndez acknowledged that better spacing, cutting and preparation were needed against Detroit\u2019s pressure. Helping players find those answers is his job.<\/p>\n
\u201cTeams just go in separate ways and I\u2019m responsible for that,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez said.<\/p>\n
The responsibility extends to whether this roster gives him enough ways to respond.<\/p>\n
Brooklyn is asking inexperienced point guards to lead an offense without an established veteran at that position. Day\u2019Ron Sharpe\u2019s foul trouble has complicated his impact inside, and the center combination of Sharpe and Wagner has yet to provide a dependable defensive foundation.<\/p>\n
Randle and Michael Porter Jr. give the group scoring experience. The roster still asks its young guards to learn how to run an NBA offense while carrying much of the responsibility for keeping it functional.<\/p>\n
Those are roster choices, with consequences the front office has to own.<\/p>\n
The same scrutiny should apply to how Brooklyn develops its draft investments. The Nets made a record five first-round selections in 2025. Early in their second seasons, Drake Powell, Ben Saraf and Danny Wolf are still working to establish regular NBA roles.<\/p>\n
Five games can\u2019t settle what any of these players will become. Egor D\u00ebmin\u2019s shooting in Cleveland, Nolan Traor\u00e9\u2019s penetration in Boston and rookie Mikel Brown Jr.\u2019s late scoring burst there supplied reasons to keep watching. D\u00ebmin\u2019s bone bruise and Brown\u2019s managed workload have also limited the early evaluation.<\/p>\n
What the organization owes them is a coherent route from those flashes to dependable contributions: clear responsibilities, reps and a team that keeps functioning through their mistakes. Fern\u00e1ndez has described a development plan spanning Brooklyn and Long Island. Its value will show in the players\u2019 decisions and performance.<\/p>\n
Giving young players time also requires judging how well the organization uses it.<\/p>\n
Marks has directed Brooklyn\u2019s basketball operations since 2016. His tenure has produced one playoff series victory. The past three completed seasons brought 32 wins, then 26, then 20.<\/p>\n
The full record includes real accomplishments, like restoring a depleted franchise to playoff relevance, attracting Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, adding James Harden and recovering substantial draft capital after that era unraveled.<\/p>\n
Those were distinct phases of the franchise. They all belong in the evaluation of the executive who oversaw them.<\/p>\n
Brooklyn\u2019s collection of picks and financial flexibility gives Marks options. Their value ultimately depends on the players those resources bring in, and the team built around them. The Nets still need someone to establish himself as the cornerstone of their next contender.<\/p>\n
And don\u2019t forget that Houston can swap first-round picks with Brooklyn in 2027. The Nets could endure the losses and surrender the better selection.<\/p>\n
Tsai told NetsDaily in August that the rebuild was on a \u201cpositive trajectory.\u201d Ownership has every right to stay patient. It also has a responsibility to establish what progress should look like and hold basketball operations to it.<\/p>\n
The early schedule and the roster\u2019s youth explain some of the difficulty. Neither removes the need to evaluate the plan, the people executing it or the support available to the players being asked to grow.<\/p>\n
That evaluation should become more demanding as the season develops. Young guards should get better at recognizing coverages. Teammates should rotate with greater certainty. An opponent\u2019s run should prompt a response before it becomes a rout.<\/p>\n
Those are reasonable expectations even when a playoff berth isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
The players need to keep their heads up. Fern\u00e1ndez needs to give them clearer answers when the game turns. Marks and Tsai need to show that the next version of the Nets is taking shape.<\/p>\n
Nets fans keep being asked to believe in the future.<\/p>\n
The people responsible for it owe them evidence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First, the shoulders sag. Then the heads drop. The ball sticks, defensive assignments get lost, and the Nets…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,4475,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-390248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-nets","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390248","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=390248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}