{"id":84508,"date":"2025-12-30T12:03:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T12:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/84508\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T12:03:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T12:03:08","slug":"what-surging-nets-must-weigh-if-they-hope-to-rescue-lottery-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/84508\/","title":{"rendered":"What surging Nets must weigh if they hope to rescue lottery plans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For the surprising Nets, Decision Day is coming sooner than expected \u2014 accelerated by each and every win.<\/p>\n<p>Brooklyn started this month with the third-worst record in the NBA \u2014 and on pace to land <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/11\/19\/sports\/dukes-cameron-boozer-could-be-nets-tanking-reward\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">one of<\/a> the <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/11\/18\/sports\/2026-nba-drafts-big-3-make-nets-tanking-stakes-clear\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">trio<\/a> of <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/12\/10\/sports\/aj-dybantsa-potential-no-1-pick-puts-on-show-in-front-of-nets\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">potential elite prospects<\/a> in the upcoming lottery. But they\u2019re ending it as one of the hottest teams in the league \u2014 and with tough calls to make about the tank they were supposed to be executing.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s important to reiterate for the 24,601st time that franchises tank, not coaches and players. Jordi Fernandez and his Nets have always tried to win, and have now seemingly turned a corner from being not just a competitive team to a good one.<\/p>\n<p>That means decisions that at one point looked as if they could be left until the summer now <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/12\/16\/sports\/nba-trade-season-gives-nets-a-chance-to-tweak-tanking-strategy\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">may have to be made by the trade deadline<\/a>. GM Sean Marks and team owner Joe Tsai may need to push timelines and accelerate conversations from months down the line to the coming weeks, from determining whether Michael Porter Jr. is an asset or a building block to possibly drumming up a market for Cam Thomas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the surprising Nets, Decision Day is coming sooner than expected \u2014 accelerated by each and every win.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,355,99,11480,31506,4570,4600,21,9,24,4601,63,4780,8439,319,428],"class_list":["post-84508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-nets","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-cameron-thomas","tag-inside-the-nets","tag-jordi-fernandez","tag-michael-porter-jr","tag-nba","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nic-claxton","tag-nyc","tag-post-sports-newsletters","tag-sean-marks","tag-sports","tag-sports-plus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84508","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=84508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}