3 Takeaways from the Brooklyn Nets’ Last 3 Games

The Brooklyn Nets are official lottery-bound — but they’re not making their journey there smooth by any means. Old habits die hard.

Whether watching for and only for lottery-boosting losses or “culture building” trials and tribulations, the handful of Brooklyn Nets fans still tuned in for this 2024-24 season’s final episodes have gotten a bit of what they want, don’t want, and when you really get down to it, don’t exactly need.

It happened just in time to queue us up for a finale that’s as frustrating as the ones we got in Game of Thrones. hell even in How I Met Your Mother! If you haven’t already, watch at your own risk.

So, how’d we get here? After dropping 17 of 20 games in their February through March stretch, the Nets put both hands on their steering wheel, jerked it in the “tanking” direction, and nailed their gas pedal to their floorboard. While that seemed to be Brooklyn’s plan from the moment they traded for their picks back last summer, the brakes were occasionally tapped this year. The wheel drifted from time to time as well.

But now, with Brooklyn eliminated from the postseason altogether, we know our final destination. There are still a few miles left on the trip, but no room to turn around. It’s just about getting home as fast as possible.

Alas, the Nets aren’t doing that. They’re taking their time, squeezing a few final bits of development out of their players…and suffering some wins at the same time. Front office types will deny they’re tanked, pointing out how Jordi Fernandez coached to win every game until last week when they were mathematically eliminated. Then, it became evaluation time.

Admirable, yet aggravating, Brooklyn is ending the season the same way it started — delivering a new brand of frustration to a fanbase that thought they’d experienced it all in the five years prior. So, here it is. A bit of good, and a bit of bad, with just a bit to go.

Dariq Whitehead is Establishing Himself as a Deadeye

The Brooklyn Nets had higher hopes for Dariq Whitehead than Patty Mills or Nik Stauskas comparisons when spending a first rounder on him almost two summers ago. He and the Nets likely still do, but with obstacles like a stress reaction and other lower body injuries falling before him, it’s been a slow climb back into the “first round prospect” limelight for the Duke product. Whitehead’s taken more than one stop in Long Island over the past two years, a few even being his own call.

Along the way, developing an identity as a marksman, even if nothing else, has become a respectable bar to shoot for, at least here in what’s really his first season as a pro.

While Whitehead’s long distance accuracy wasn’t at its highest over these last three games, his volume elevated his numbers for the season to a level that will give him deadeye status should he keep them up.

After going 3-of-11 from deep vs Los Angeles, Washington, and Dallas, Whitehead’s now averaging 3.1 triples per game and hitting them at a 41.9% clip. Again, a 3-of-11 shooting stretch isn’t particularly great, or even good, but the volume brought his attempts above three per game. That, paired with a 40%+ mark, should be enough to warrant a sharpshooter badge if he maintains it over the next six games.

As Whitehead’s established himself as a deadeye here, Jordi Fernández has been the one feeding him ammunition. The new coach has shown a talent for setting up his shooters with creative screens and schemes all year, including several for Dariq.

Watch above to see him get free on the Danny Green cut. While this play is outside the three game stretch I’m referring to, it’s been a mainstay in the Brooklyn offense for much of their second half this season.

In the process, Whitehead’s also inched closer to taking those steps every coach hopes to see out of young shooters. While I can’t call this attacking a “hard” closeout with Jaden Hardy keeping himself relatively in position here, Whitehead still leverages his pressure on the wing to get the blow by below.

The more defense attention draws from deep, the more opportunities to score he’ll get to score in this capacity.

As a bonus, we’ve also seen Whitehead illustrate skills beyond those of a standalone shooter recently. He even flashed that ability to separate which made him a first round talent to begin with vs the Wizards. He took some contact, hanging tough to flip one over Ben Simmons during one sequence vs LA as well.

There’s still no telling what Whitehead looks like in his final form. We likely won’t get that answer this year either. These things take time — more than a few games at the end of a season, even if playing 20+ minutes.

However, progress is progress, and all that he’s made behind or around the 3-point line should be enough to brand him as a threat from there going into next season.

Tyrese Martin Has Underrated Upside

Brooklyn’s other young guard, though six years older than Whitehead, has also illustrated his widened skillset in these last three contests.

After dropping five vs Dallas, Tyrese Martin has now handed out four-plus assists in five of his last six games. He did so only four times in his first 51 appearances this season. As a result, he’s lifted his averages to a respectable 8.7/3.7/2.0 for the season.

With the injury bug taking a particular liking to Brooklyn’s point guards this year, Martin (and Keon Johnson at times) were thrown to the wolves when asked to operate as facilitators while being two-guards at their core. But Johnson, and especially Martin lately, have handled it like Michael J. Fox in 80s. Smooth as a DeLorean hitting 88 mph at just the right time.

Martin’s biggest moment as a distributor in this contested stretch of course came against the Wiz Kids. Again, Fernández’s choices were limited, but he still put the ball in Martin’s hands with the game on the line, trusting him to operate around the DHO with poise and precision. He did so, giving Brooklyn its best and worst moment of the weekend all in one…

On this play and on several others in the second half of the season, Martin did well to sense the defense around him, much like a quarterback in a collapsing pocket, before making the right read. With that being a “feel thing,” it’s not the easiest skill to teach to a guy out of position, and therefore that much more impressive to pull off.

Martin’s vision and feel for the game have also been on display lately during fast break sequences, mainly in the Dallas and Los Angeles games. He was instrumental in the Nets putting up 20+ points in transition during those two contests, making it just the third time this season where the Nets have gone for 20+ points there twice in a three game set.

It’s not the first time we’ve seen him utilize his athleticism on the go before making the right read either.

Similarly to Whitehead, Martin’s final form remains unknown, and despite everything I’ve mentioned above, it probably won’t involve him becoming a full-time point guard. Developing him into one would be like trying to use a Mustang to pull around your trailer. Even though you’re glad it has the horsepower to do so, it probably has better usage and longevity if applied elsewhere.

Still, at least we know Martin can pull the caravan that is Brooklyn’s offense on occasion. More points for the Rhode Island x UConn product before this season’s buzzer.

Philly has Beaten Us…Again

Alright, here’s the big one. Obviously, two wins for Brooklyn this late in the season had to come at a price, and it’s one just as frustrating to pay as your state income tax.

With the Philadelphia 76ers now being the losers of nine straight, they’ve pulled ahead of Brooklyn in the lottery standings by two games. The pair of rivals, more used to jockeying for position at the other end of the standings, were tied for weeks beforehand.

While the six games left for each team leave the Nets with enough track out in front to retake Philly, their odds of doing so are long. Not only do the pesky Nets need to get back to their losing ways, but the Sixers, who’ve strategically sucked better than anyone in NBA history, need to stumble into at least two wins. They’ve done that in a six game stretch only five times since January 1st.

Sure, the wins over the Wizards and Mavericks will get the most attention being be the most visible ones in our rear view mirror when looking back on the season — but all loses count the same. In this writer’s opinion, it’s Brooklyn’s work out West that deserves further examination as we try to identify what went right — and therefore wrong.

While this figure includes the recent Dallas game, the Nets are currently 8-7 on the road against the Western Conference this year. If a record like that sounds like one that should be saved for playoff teams, it’s because it should. The only other squads in the East currently over .500 on the road vs. the West are the Boston Celtics, Cleveland Cavaliers, Detroit Pistons, and Indiana Pacers.

While enjoyable in the moment, their string of wins in Golden State, Phoenix, Memphis, and Sacramento in the first month of the season now just feel like misplaced investments. Every other lottery-bound team in the East has a collective .189 winning percentage on the road vs the West this year. If we applied that winning percentage to Brooklyn, they’d get back between five and six losses, putting them ahead of both the Sixers and New Orleans.

In fairness, the Nets also have more company here in the basement than they or anyone could have expected this season. Now including the 76ers, the Nets have been “lottery leaped” by two teams who ranked in the top half of the league in projected win total entering the season. Even if both the Pelicans and 76ers went .500 the rest of the way, which they won’t, they’ll hit their under by more than 20 games.

Perhaps the lottery gods bless Brooklyn. Perhaps they don’t. They sure owe us one at the expense of Washington and Philly, who both jumped the 70-loss Nets in the 2010 NBA Draft where John Wall went first overall. But at the same time, if those kids of debts were paid on time in this league, the Nets would be sitting on a mountain of basketball fortune by now.

The point is, there’s almost certainly no more shifting to in the standings to worry about. It’s time to trade in your calculators for a religious text of your choice.