Brooklyn Nets: 3 best things from the season so far
By Luke Duffy
2. Staying competitive paid off
Despite appearing to have nothing to play for this season, the way things have shaken out could benefit the Nets more than any other team. The east is the weaker of the two conferences, but winning 30 games and being in control of the seventh seed means that not only do they get to go to Orlando to finish the season, but they may avoid a play-in game if necessary too.
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With the season looking to resume in late July and eight regular-season games to come before the playoffs, the Nets are all but guaranteed to make the postseason. That is still literally months away, and the longer it takes to reach that point, the more time they have for Durant and Irving to be healthy and playing.
Can you imagine playing a seventh seed in a neutral venue featuring Durant, Irving and Dinwiddie? That is a nightmare for another organization that would have considered finished second in the standings a successful regular season. The defending champion Toronto Raptors occupy that space now, with the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat behind them.
Imagine a first-round series featuring any one of those franchises and the Nets. While it doesn’t make sense to rush Durant back from such a severe Achilles injury — reports have also suggested he’ll still sit out the remainder of the season — the player himself would have every reason to want to make it back and play. Leading the seventh seed to a title having played 36 games max (eight regular-season games plus at most four, seven-game series) for the franchise in his first season there.
Doing that with an interim head coach in Jacque Vaughn too, well that’s the kind of stuff that gets remembered forever, asterisk beside a title in the minds of fans or not. There is no reason to rush anybody back, and this was meant to be a transitional season anyway. But if Brooklyn could go and steal a title, that’s a narrative too good for Durant, Irving and the rest to turn down. It was only possible because they kept their head just above water during the season.