Brooklyn Nets: Complete grades for the 2019 NBA offseason
By Alec Liebsch
The Margins
Like they did last summer, the Brooklyn Nets added some quality depth pieces on good deals.
Wilson Chandler, a two-way forward who doesn’t suck on either end, joins the fray on a one-year minimum deal. It will either be a stepping stone for him to get paid next summer or the beginning of his twilight.
Chandler will be a competent bench forward, paired with Rodions Kurucs off the pine. He can shoot somewhat (35.2 percent on 3-pointers over the past three seasons) without completely sucking on defense.
He played important minutes for the Sixers before being traded in the Tobias Harris deal and while he is showing signs of aging, the Nets system should give a player of his ilk a boost.
Grade: B+
The Nets also snagged Garrett Temple on a two-year, $10 million deal, with the second year being a team option. Temple is a Swiss army knife offensively, filling motley roles as a playmaker (career assist percentage of 11.7), spot-up shooter (36.2 percent on threes since 2014) and versatile defender (Defensive Box Plus-Minus of 0.5).
Quite simply, Temple doesn’t suck. He’s not particularly great at anything, but his versatility plays right into the coach’s hands.
Atkinson loves to tinker with lineups and move players around and Temple is exactly the basketball player you want to experiment that with, especially at that price tag.
Grade: A-
The Nets also did right by one of their own, retaining Theo Pinson on a “one plus one” minimum contract. The second year is a team option.
Pinson went undrafted in 2018, and signed with the Nets before training camp. He proved to be good enough for a two-way contract and helped the Long Island Nets flourish in the G League. F
or the minor league team, Pinson averaged 20.1 points per game with a True Shooting Percentage of 57.8.
He was instructed to take a ton of 3s on Long Island, which is evident in his 38.4 percent clip on 7.9 3-point attempts per game. Nearly half his field goal attempts were 3s. If he can do that with Brooklyn and not suck defensively, Pinson will be well on his way to finding a spot in the rotation.
Grade: B+
Another excellent move on the margins was snagging David Nwaba after all the dust settled. Nwaba went weirdly unsigned for the first two weeks of free agency, perplexing pundits around the league.
Nwaba agreed to a two-year minimum contract, with the second-year guaranteed on July 6 of next year. Sure he has a reputation as a poor shooter, but he’s improving in that department, more than doubling his career attempts last season with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Nwaba’s best work is as a defender. He was one of the few bright spots on an otherwise terrible Cavs team, as evidenced by the team’s +8.4 Net Rating swing when he stepped on the court. It was still negative, but it’s hard to blame Nwaba for that.
If the Nets can turn him into a competent shooter—like they’ve done for many others—he’ll be a valuable contributor and far exceed his contract.
Grade: A-
On the same day as the Nwaba signing, the Nets also poached castaway Henry Ellenson. A stretch-big out of Marquette, Ellenson hasn’t quite found his footing in three seasons in the NBA.
He started off with the Detroit Pistons, where he couldn’t get regular playing time in Stan Van Gundy’s rotation and was constantly funneled between the G League team and Detroit. He was waived in February and then picked up by the Knicks.
Ellenson’s most desirable attribute is his shooting, which you’d think a coach would want around its star big man. Oh well.
In 17 games with New York, Ellenson hit 15-of-34 attempts from beyond (44.1 percent). He’s also a career 77.4 percent free throw shooter, which is evidence that his shooting in the flow of the game is not a fluke.
On a two-way contract with Brooklyn, Ellenson can master his craft as a shooting big, which Atkinson will love. His defense may never be a plus, or even average, but being an elite shooter can override that if you’re a backup. Hopefully Ellenson can become that.