SHORT-TERM: This is all new, for all of the Brooklyn Nets

It’s not just the 59-point loss, but all of it. This franchise —from the front office to the rookie head coach to the young players — is in unfamiliar territory.

The Brooklyn Nets just lost a game by 59 points.

There are a bunch of way you can arrange the numbers to illustrate just how epic of a defeat it was, which, as these games do, bordered on performance art by the fourth quarter

After grabbing a 25-24 lead early in the second quarter, the Nets gave up an extended 66-13 run to the Los Angeles Clippers. Sixty-six to thirteen. There was a ten-minute stretch spanning the second and third quarters in which Brooklyn scored three points. Ten minutes, three points. The Nets scored 40 points in the first quarter of Tuesday’s victory over the Portland Trail Blazers; they did not reach 40 on Wednesday night until the 4:34 mark of the third quarter.

Laugh or cry. Those are your two options, and with half-a-season to go, choose your options wisely.

The Brooklyn Nets have but one option: “Show up the next day and try to be better,” as Head Coach Jordi Fernández said after the historic whooping.

This isn’t new for the Nets. A big loss is a big loss, whether it’s by 59 points or whether there’s a meaningless 10-0 run with a minute left to cut it to 49. Every professional athlete knows that feeling. So do a bunch of the rest of us — sitting on the bench, silent, chin-in-hands, sorta chilly because you’ve been out of the game for so long the sweat has dried. Glancing at the scoreboard, trying to cheer on the bench-warmers but lacking the heart to do so.

What’s new for the Brooklyn Nets is everything else. Everything.

This front office has never had to navigate a season in which maximizing their lottery odds (read: tanking) is their main goal. They’ve never had to weigh the cost of keeping veterans that might win too many games on the roster vs. settling for lesser returns, nor how to sit players that may not be fully healthy, but may be healthy enough.

As of January 16, Brooklyn is neck-and-neck with Portland, the two teams trading the sixth- and seventh-best lottery odds (read: sixth- and seventh-worst records) in the league. There’s a four-team pack higher up Loser Mountain. The Raptors, Pelicans, Jazz, and Hornets all have nine or ten wins. Don’t even think about the six-win Washington Wizards.

While the Pelicans are healthier, 5-5 in their last ten games, all those teams really stink. Rooting for them to make up a four- or five-win gap in the standings is cause for anxiety. In Sean Marks’ first go-round at this type of season, how shameless is he willing to be? Hopefully very.

A season or two of tanking is not, by itself, detrimental to the long-term culture of a franchise. The current record-holder for the steepest loss of all-time is the 2021 OKC Thunder; they are now a Death Star. The Memphis Grizzlies lost a game by 61 points in March of 2018, then drafted Jaren Jackson Jr. in June. Which mattered more?

Nets fans should know how many other pitfalls franchises can fall into.

So Jordi Fernández should be just fine by the summer time, even if his Nets win less than ten games the rest of the season. But he’s never been through this before, as he reminded us before Brooklyn departed for this road trip.

“When you move one seat, everything is a different world. And for me, learning every day is very important. The managing people is very important, it takes time, and I just go out there to and try to do what’s best for the group, but also, like, make sure that I also get better. It’s not just my way. I have to, obviously, ask my coaches and work with the front office, and we have a performance staff. So yeah, to answer your question, being the lead assistant or a front-bench assistant or assistant, it’s not the same as being the head coach. And I think that’s the beauty of it. That’s how you get better, when you care about it and you try to pay attention.”

How do we assess if Fernández is improving? The honest answer is we can’t, at least this season. Maybe a late-game play-call here or a sweet ATO there, but his coaching will be on the back-burner until the Nets face real short-term adversity, when wins and losses are imperative.

Of course, Fernández deserves much credit in his rookie season so far, even as his team is 14-27. The offensive flow despite so many moving pieces, the general spirit of the team, all the successful challenges…

As for that spirit, though, that’s not all Jordi Fernández. Aside from Wednesday’s 59 point loss, the players have consistently shown up and played hard, even during their five-game losing streak, though it is unsurprising that a bunch of unproven players are grinding to get theirs.

This is all new for them too. Tyrese Martin, Keon Johnson, Tosan Evbuomwan, even sophomores Noah Clowney and Jalen Wilson have never been relied upon for a whole season to produce. This is life in the NBA, and half of Brooklyn’s team is experiencing it for the first time.

“Nah, It’s not the same at all. In the [G League], you might play a back-to-back here and there and have like four days before your next game,” said Noah Clowney. “Here, you play a game, you fly into new city, you play a game that same night you land. So it’s different, for sure, it’s a little more. The travel is the main thing.”

Tyrese Martin, who played in the G League for the entirety of 2023-24, has a similar perspective: “I would say, you know, the games come faster. More games, so you don’t have time to really sit there. Maybe you go through a shooting slump or whatever it is, and really just harp on it. You don’t have time to do that. You got to get ready for the next game.”

We are not just watching a poor team whose front office is handicapping them in hopes of landing a better draft pick. We are watching a bunch of guys that have never been through this before, whether it’s Jordi Fernández leading them or Cam Thomas missing extending time with injury, Cam Johnson in a lead role, or half the rotation playing real minutes, every night.

Over the second half of the season, there will be more nights like Wednesday. Maybe the Nets won’t be trailing by 64 points, but they’ll be trailing by a lot, and the offense will be sub-NBA quality.

The only hope that exists is that the Nets will “show up the next day and try to be better,” as Fernández said. What that looks like — even who will be here the next day — is an unknown.

At the beginning of this rebuild, Brooklyn’s present is as mysterious as their future.

Their next chance to be better comes on Friday night in a road game against the Los Angeles Lakers, with tip-off set for 10:30 p.m. ET.