We Can Get a Little Excited About the Nets
By: Ian Canupp
Tags: NBA, Bigkaybeezy, Brooklyn Nets, Basketball, Ira

The NBA season is back! I figured while every sports media outlet is focused on last night’s Battle of Los Angeles or Harden’s strip club misadventures, I could sneak in some of my thoughts on the other opening night game. Anybody who watched it can tell you that the combined firepower of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving won the new-look Nets their season opener within the first quarter but fortunately for Brooklyn fans who might take some time getting accustomed to secure leads, Caris LeVert showed up to excite and lead nearly every statistical category off the bench. While any praise should be taken with a grain of salt given the caliber of opponent, LeVert looked comfortable playing his patented “The Defense Can’t Know Where I’m Going If I Don’t Know Where I’m Going” style of driving to the rim.

Constantly ballin’ like Caris LeVert

Now, I won’t sit here behind a screen and definitively tell you that this impressive increase in production is a result of his first career name-drop in a rap song, because that would be ridiculous. However I would be remiss to ignore that on March 13th, BigKayBeezy released “Bookbag” where he mispronounced the name of his favorite “constantly balling” Net at about the 1:18 mark and since then, LeVert has averaged double his career points on 5% higher efficiency, leading at least myself to believe there might be a correlation. But I digress.

Leading up to the debut of Brooklyn’s two new superstars, there has been well documented skepticism around the defensive ceiling of the team as a whole. Understandably so, as rolling out three undersized guards in your starting lineup next to thirty two year old DeAndre Jordan and the giant question mark that was post-Achilles injury KD did not look to be stopping many teams on paper. Admittedly, that crowd got a bit quieter last night and although I still have my qualms about starting DJ over Jarrett Allen, I have a renewed faith in their bench. That second unit, led by LeVert and the aforementioned Allen, possess an average wingspan of nearly seven feet, which sits comfortably above the league average. Every single trip down the floor was a struggle for Golden State’s smaller guards against the length of the Net’s bench. Again, because the Warrior’s motion offense of legend looked incredibly lackluster without Draymond and Klay, I’m not ready to make any sweeping claims about Brooklyn’s upcoming season, but coach Steve Nash proved he might have some method behind his rotation madness.

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Two main takeaways from this chart:

Coach Nash likes to play his guys in blocks to let them develop chemistry on the floor, rarely mixing the starters with the bench/3rd unit. Due to the sporadic nature of Golden State’s substitutions, the Net’s bench ended up playing all of their minutes against varying amalgamations of Warriors’ starters and bench, a majority of which Curry is present in.

In these limited bench minutes, that lineup of LeVert, Allen, Shamet, Prince and Green managed to record at least one steal apiece with LeVert swiping 2 for himself. This accounted for six of the team’s total eleven, a stat that would have been made even more impressive if KD didn’t account for 3 steals from team “Rest of Nets.” LeVert’s quick hands and athleticism deter passes from swinging around the perimeter while Allen’s defensive pressure inside the paint is a daunting force for would-be entry passers. With the rest of the squad feeding off the energy of these two, the Nets would only have to get lucky once on an errant pass. To get a bucket, the Warriors would have to be lucky always.

While I have my reservations regarding the offensive limitations of this group — God forbid a team come up with a solution for the LeVert/Allen two man game — I wouldn’t let it get in the way from a bit of blind optimism for this exciting new Brooklyn team. It’s encouraging to see LeVert hasn’t lost a step from his strong showing in the bubble and perhaps even more so that KD looks to “still have it,” something a lot of outsiders doubted. And while this may have seemed like a BigKayBeezy promotional stunt at times or even IRA propaganda at others, I assure you it was intended to be neither and that I only wished to detail a small storyline surrounding a very exciting young player. Brooklyn fans have a lot to be excited for after a year of hecklers pointing out their injury-ridden signings, so I’m sure they’ll have an answer for those same hecklers when the “It was only depleted Golden State” complaints come through. . .