How can the Brooklyn Nets turn things around under a new coach?
On Tuesday, the Nets announced they're parting ways with Steve Nash after two-plus seasons at the helm in Brooklyn, with Jacque Vaughn to serve as acting head coach against the Chicago Bulls.
Shortly after the announcement, ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported the Nets are negotiating with suspended Boston Celtics coach Ime Udoka to take on that role.
Whether it's Udoka or not, the next Nets coach will be tasked with turning around a season that has started with a 2-5 record despite stars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving being in the lineup for all seven games.
Still less than 18 months removed from looking like NBA title favorites after taking a 2-0 lead against eventual 2021 champion Milwaukee Bucks, Brooklyn has been just three games better than .500 since then, got swept by the Celtics in the first round of last season's playoffs and is currently embroiled in controversy.
What changes can a new coach make to help the Nets realize the high expectations when they paired Durant and Irving in the summer of 2019?
Or is this version of Brooklyn doomed as a contender?
Goal No. 1: Respectability on defense
As currently constructed, Brooklyn has no realistic hope of being a good defensive team.
Even the 2020-21 team that looked so dominant in the playoffs when healthy ranked 22nd in defensive rating during the regular season, two spots worse than the Nets finished last season.
In contrast to those teams, Brooklyn has even less size this season. Starter Nic Claxton and second-year reserve Day'Ron Sharpe, who spent two games out of the rotation before reentering during Monday's narrow win over the Indiana Pacers, are the lone centers on the roster.
Add in the challenges that playing Claxton alongside another non-shooter (Ben Simmons) presents at the other end, and it's been difficult for the Nets to keep a traditional rim protector on the court. Before Simmons missed Monday's game, Nash had experimented with him as a backup center the previous two games, separating his minutes from Claxton's as much as possible.
According to Second Spectrum tracking data, opponents have made 70% of their shots against Brooklyn inside the restricted area around the basket, which ranks 23rd in the NBA. With Claxton off the court, that increases to 74%, which would rank 28th.
As effective as Simmons was defensively during 2020-21, finishing second in Defensive Player of the Year voting during his most recent season, it wasn't by protecting the rim. Per Second Spectrum tracking on NBA Advanced Stats, Simmons was the primary defender on just 2.2 shots per game inside 5 feet in 2020-21 with the Philadelphia 76ers. That's more than doubled to 4.5 per game this season.
Meanwhile, the Nets' fleet of small guards (Irving, Seth Curry and Patty Mills) has made it challenging to deploy Simmons where he excelled in Philadelphia: against playmakers at the point of attack. Per Second Spectrum, Simmons has defended the ball handler on just 19.1 picks per 100 possessions this season, as compared to 24.7 during 2020-21.
No coach is going to be able to overcome those structural challenges.
Still, Brooklyn will almost certainly improve on defense solely through regression to the mean. Opponents have hit 41% of their 3-point attempts against Brooklyn, the league's fourth-highest mark.
Not only has no team in NBA history allowed that high a percentage, how well opponents shoot 3s during the first seven games of the season tells us almost nothing about what will happen the rest of the way.
Teams like the Nets, who have seen opponents shoot better than 40% from 3-point range the first seven games, have seen them hit 36.3% the rest of the season -- only slightly worse than the average for all teams (35.7%).
The awkward Simmons fit on offense
If Brooklyn is to succeed, it will have to be through dominant offense. The 2020-21 Nets led the NBA in offensive rating despite having Durant (35 of 72 games), James Harden (36 after being acquired from the Houston Rockets midseason) and Irving (54) in and out of the lineup. Last season's Brooklyn squad slipped to 10th, and thus far the Nets rank a middling 16th in offensive rating.
Fitting Simmons into the lineup is part of the problem. He's making just 45.5% of his 2-point attempts thus far, down from the 56% he shot during four seasons with the Sixers. Add in 47% free throw shooting, down from 56% during the regular season (but just 52% in the playoffs) and Simmons has been a drain on Brooklyn's efficiency.
To maximize their potential, the Nets need Simmons for his defense and playmaking, requiring them to deal with his early rust and to figure out how to use him. Simmons has been a more frequent screen-setter this season, averaging 17.4 on-ball picks per 100 possessions according to Second Spectrum, doubling his 2020-21 mark (8.6).
Thus far, playing Simmons at center hasn't worked to unlock the offense. Despite the majority of those minutes coming with Durant on the court, Brooklyn is still averaging just 107.7 points per 100 possessions when Simmons plays without Claxton, per analysis of data from NBA Advanced Stats, barely better than the team's offensive rating with Simmons and Claxton (107.6).
By contrast, during the 100 minutes Claxton has played with Simmons on the bench, the Nets are scoring a sizzling 124.1 points per 100 possessions and have a plus-22.9 net rating, thanks in part to opponents shooting more typically from 3-point range (36%).
Same as on defense, Brooklyn is due for 3-point regression. The team is hitting just 33% from 3-point range, down from 36% last season and 39% in 2020-21. Injuries to sharpshooters Curry and Joe Harris have factored into that, but the Nets have also seen Irving (30%) and Durant (32%) shoot far worse than their career marks while combining to attempt more than 15 3-pointers per game. That surely won't continue.
Brooklyn is bound for improvement, but only to a point
Aside from the games counting in the standings, we can safely throw out the Nets' 2-5 record as an indicator because of the aberrant 3-point shooting on both sides. Brooklyn has been outscored by 11.6 points per game on 3s, the league's second-worst differential ahead of the Chicago Bulls, after being outscored by just 3.2 last season and being plus-2.9 PPG on 3s in 2020-21.
Still, the improvement we can expect through better shooting and worse opponent shooting is limited. For as much talent as the Nets have, they were projected for an unremarkable 45.6 wins on average by my model coming into the season, the seventh-best projection in the Eastern Conference.
For Brooklyn to beat that, Simmons looks key. The version of Simmons we saw during the regular season in Philadelphia would make the Nets more dynamic in the open court and better defensively.
The biggest challenge for Brooklyn's next coach will be getting Simmons back to that point in terms of his confidence on offense and role on defense.