Brooklyn Nets’ lottery odds ascend as D’Angelo Russell’s excels and other takeaways

The Brooklyn Nets aren’t interested in winning too many games — nor should they be — but their starting point guard might throw a wrench into those plans.

Following Wednesday night’s incredibly short-handed loss to the Phoenix Suns, the Brooklyn Nets sit at 14-31, and firmly on the downturn, riding a 4-17 stretch without an exit sign in sight.

This is all part of the plan.

Though another challenger has (unwillingly) entered the race in the Philadelphia 76ers, the Nets are gaining ground on their opponents, the fun and pragmatic way to frame all this losing they’re doing. Life is all about perspective, and the most important perspective is that the Nets are just 2.5 games away from having the second-worst record in the league.

Currently, Brooklyn is neck-and-neck with the Portland Trail Blazers at the 6/7 spot of best lotto odds. A Blazers win Thursday put the Nets 2.5 ahead of them in the race to the bottom. Once again, a reminder of how the ping-pong balls are laid out, courtesy of Tankathon…

There is no separate path to walk on for the Nets. Whether they trade for Giannis Antetokounmpo and sign Michael Jordan out of retirement this off-season, or if Sean Marks falls asleep at his office chair from May-September, the best possible outcome for the next three months remains the same.

Though things are trending in the right direction, the job is not finished. Holding the sixth-best lottery odds on May 12 would be a failure of process, with the odds of picking between 6-8 at 54%. In that scenario, could Brooklyn get lucky? Of course! But declining to play the odds is malpractice, and the Nets know it.

This has created an odd vibe at Barclays Center, where the Nets still have 22 games left to play. Of every team trying to Capture the Flagg, Brooklyn has by far the fewest prospects on the current roster. It’s really just Noah Clowney.

Tosan Evbuomwan and Tyrese Martin are promising two-way finds, yes, but a “promising two-way find” is code-speak for “this guy in his mid-20s might be an NBA player,” which is also how we’d describe Jalen Wilson. Still a decent outcome for a #51 pick, but nothing that impacts the direction of a franchise.

This might sound a little dismissive of the current Nets roster, but it gets a stamp of approval for the long-term direction of the franchise. Just one season ago, they went 32-50 while actively trying to make the playoffs!

Let Kevin Durant tell it, as he did before Wednesday’s Nets-Suns battle…

How nice and accurate of KD! Not to mention calling the product on the floor “inconsistent” rather than, you know…bad.

That’s the worst part of this whole thing, and it can’t be glossed over. It is not very fun to watch the Brooklyn Nets most nights, though the team does play hard. Not only are they not very good, they’re not going to be here very long. This is not the roster fans will grow with, so tuning into games is a hard sell.

Alas, there is no success without suffering. Unless you’re a Boston Celtics fan. (But who would want to be one of those?)

D’Angelo Russell changes the offense

Not exactly a bold statement, considering Brooklyn scored 84 points against the Suns on Wednesday night without him. Still, per Cleaning the Glass, the Nets have a 117.9 offensive rating with D’Angelo Russell on the court, which is an 80th percentile mark in the league. That number goes up to 118.2 with Cam Johnson on the bench!

This could mean D’Lo is gone by the trade deadline, but considering he was effectively salary-dumped by the Los Angeles Lakers as an $18.2 expiring, there might not be many active suitors for him.

So while D’Lo might not be perfect for the Nets, they’re actually the perfect team for him in his second stint with the franchise. With Cam Thomas out, Russell represents Brooklyn’s only hope late in the shot-clock, a player they can run high pick-and-roll with when all else fails. Russell can get his own shot in the situations, spray it out to shooters, or actually hit Nic Claxton and Day’Ron Sharpe on the roll.

Brooklyn attempts five percent more of its shots directly at the rim when Russell takes the court, a heavy increase.

Most of all, though, Russell fixes the league’s worst transition offense. So far, he’s made them not just average, but awesome…

This is damn-near an impossible task. Without Russell against Phoenix, the Nets scored zero transition points, shooting 0-of-13 on the break. Read that again.

Here’s a bit of entertaining small-sample-size theater, once again thanks to CTG.

The Memphis Grizzlies are the league’s best transition offense, adding 4.2 points per 100 possessions through transition play. (If they had to play half-court basketball every time down, their offensive rating would be 4.2 points worse than it is.)

All season, the Nets have been the NBA’s worst transition team. It’s where their lack of offensive talent really shows up, where Jordi Fernández can’t save them. The numbers say it, and so do the eyes…

However, since D’Lo’s addition to the team, they’ve crept up to 29th in this category, and it’s all thanks to him. Brooklyn’s transition offense is 4.7 points/100 better with D’Angelo Russell on, compared to when he’s off. Again, the league’s best transition offense adds just 4.2 points/100, according to Cleaning the Glass.

So, just 171 minutes into Russell’s second stint in Brooklyn, they’ve been the league’s deadliest fast-break offense with him on the court. They’re the worst without him.

Of course, 171 minutes is close to nothing. These extreme numbers will normalize. But it displays how little offensive talent the Nets have, that adding D’Angelo Russell changes this much. He processes the open floor, and he’s not afraid to shoot, pass, and dribble.

It really displays how little passing talent the Nets have had over the past few seasons. (No disrespect to Ben Simmons, whose passing in the open floor brings similar value but is often knee-capped by a total reluctance to shoot the ball.)

This play is pretty basic, and it’s also is the best extra pass a Net has made all season…

Welcome back, Three’Lo.

One Tosan Evbuomwan improvement

Tosan Evbuomwan just looks like an NBA player. Until there’s a real sample size of Dariq Whitehead in the NBA — and one where he looks like a functional athlete — he’s their second-most intriguing sophomore, to me.

But the Brit isn’t a typical success story waiting to happen. Typically, fringe-guys who make it have one bona fide NBA skill, then flesh out the rest of their games. I’m not sure what Evbuomwan’s one NBA skill is right now; he closes out well on the perimeter, he’s physical inside, he can make threes here and there, and tries to finish with either hand.

The skill I’ve been most impressed by is the passing, and it tracks given his collegiate career; he has the all-time single-season record for assists at Princeton University…

To have a future as a bona fide NBA player, Evbuomwan probably needs to lean into that more and cut the fat out of his shot diet. As The Guy at Princeton (and often in the G League) he had the license to work the mid-range, to back down defenders and hit fading 14-footers at awkward angles. We’ve seen that skill in his brief Brooklyn Nets stint, but when there’s talent on the floor next to him, and he’s relegated to screen-setting and attacking closeouts, there can’t be much of this…

Head Coach Jordi Fernández had spoken glowingly of Evbuomwan, but we know he’s not thrilled with those kind of shots. Still, it’s tough to hold his 2-of-15 performance on Wednesday against him, given that he was pressed into way more offensive responsibility than he has any right to handle at this stage of his career.

“He’s trying to do everything we ask him to do,” said Fernández after Wednesday’s game. “He’s a multi-positional defender, and then offensively, he can handle, he can playmake, he can score. Obviously, 2-for-15 is not a great line, but I don’t care … Actually, I thought that he should shoot have shot at least two or three more threes, and he didn’t.”

I’m looking forward to seeing what Evbuomwan’s shot diet looks like when he’s scaled down in the offense, if that day comes. Will there be more drives all the way to the rim, more passing out of drives, or a Clowney-like appetite for taking threes?

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On Saturday night, there will at least be a solid reason to turn on a Brooklyn Nets game. Not only is the Jimmy Butler saga continuing for the Miami Heat (nice to be an observer for once, eh?), but Nets are retiring Vince Carter’s #15 jersey. Listen to the latest episode of The Backcourt for more…

…and as always, visit NetsDaily over the next few days to keep up with our coverage of Carter’s special week.

Brooklyn’s next game and the official jersey retirement will occur on Saturday night at Barclays Center as the Nets take on the Miami Heat. Tip-off is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. ET. Get there early, the 10,000 VC bobbleheads will go fast.