New normal for Nets: How defense changed Brooklyn's future

Over the last month-plus, the Brooklyn Nets have played the way that many thought they would play for the last three seasons. They’ve won 16 of their past 18 games to leap to the top of the Eastern Conference, within 1.5 games of the top seed, and appear to be contenders for the championship that was once considered their destiny.

The first question, to me, is how did this team finally start achieving its level? And the second, perhaps more pertinent question… is this the new normal? Is this Nets team the one that we’ll get for the next six-plus months on the way to that potential championship?

In addition to the obvious on-court brilliance of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, I see two main answers to the first question: defense and availability. Ultimately, those will be the key factors in the answer to the second question as well.

The Nets, when on the court together, have always been able to produce big points. How could they not, when led by generational talents like Durant and Irving? However, prior to this season, defense has been an issue. The Nets were among the bottom-12 defenses in the league for each of the last two seasons, ranking 19th in team Defensive Rating last season and 23rd the season before. This season, almost three months in, they sit in the top-10 and rising with the ninth-best team DRTG in the league. And the improvement appears to be real, because it’s centered around personnel improvements on that end of the court.

The Nets feature defense-first players in three-fifths of their starting line-up, with Ben Simmons, Royce O’Neale and Nic Claxton giving the team a defensive identity. According to ESPN’s Real Plus Minus (RPM) measure, both Simmons and O’Neale rank among the top-10 in their respective positions in Defensive RPM. But, the key to the Nets’ defense has been the emergence of their fourth-year center, 23 year-old Claxton.

According to Second Spectrum, Claxton is holding opponents to a sparkling 0.89 points per shot as the nearest defender, one of the best marks in the league. Similarly, he holds opponents to only 0.91 points per touch as the nearest defender. These stellar marks encompass Claxton as a one-one-one defender, but also include him providing help defense as a rim protector.

Not surprisingly, given those scouting-based numbers, Claxton ranks as sixth-most impactful defender in the entire NBA thus far this season, according to DRPM.

Claxton’s strong defense, high-efficiency offense role has also been great for his fantasy production. He currently ranks in the top-40 in fantasy points scored this season, built on his averages of 11.9 PPG on a league-leading 73.3 FG%, 8.2 RPG, 2.5 BPG, 1.4 APG and 0.8 SPG.

I believe Claxton’s defensive breakout is real, and he should be able to continue to lead this unit to a stronger defense moving forward…as long as their players are on the court.

And that, of course, is the elephant in the room. If the best ability is availability, the main players on the Nets have absolutely struggled at the most important element of the game. The Nets have four players currently among the top-130 in fantasy points scored this season: Durant (third), Irving (35th ), Claxton (37th) and Simmons (129th). Consider the sheer volume of games missed by all four, in the three full seasons before this one:

All four have missed double-digit games in all three seasons, for a vast variety of reasons. Durant, who in his mid-30s is of advanced age, had a catastrophic injury that made him miss an entire season, but in the two subsequent seasons he still averaged 32 missed games a season.

Claxton, on the other hand, is just starting out. He only played in 15 games as a rookie and is coming off a career-best 47 games played last season…are we sure that his body is ready to step up to starter minutes and play almost twice as many games?

Simmons and Irving both have had well-publicized off-court situations that have caused them to miss major time in the last two seasons, but on top of that, both have had physical issues as well. Simmons just had back surgery in the late spring, and (not shown on the chart) he missed the entirety of what would have been his rookie season in 2016-17 due to a foot injury, making him the only player on this list to miss two whole NBA seasons in his first six seasons in the league. And Irving was already averaging 21.8 missed games a season in his first 10 seasons, before the vaccine and social equality scandals of the last two seasons.

When I put it all together, it is very difficult for me to project what we’ve seen for the last 1-2 months as the new normal for the Nets as either individuals or a team. All of their primary fantasy hoops threats have a major history of missed games. And, on a futures front, the current team only works because of the balance between a KD/Kyrie-driving offense and the Claxton/Simmons/O’Neal-led defense. If any of their key players have to miss extended time, the way that literally all of them have over the last several seasons, it’s hard to imagine that they can maintain their balance and win at a high enough rate to contend in a very top-heavy Eastern Conference.

This leads to me being absolutely willing to trade any Nets player on my fantasy squad, particularly now when all are at max value. I’m also fading them in NBA futures, as they are among the favored teams in the league and thus have odds much too short for my taste on the risk/reward continuum. On the other hand, I absolutely endorse utilizing the Nets and their players in DFS and daily betting considerations. Enjoy their stellar play, and in daily scenarios there’s no major risk based on historic trends.

I’ve really enjoyed watching the Nets finally start to come together, and I wish them nothing but well in the second half of this season. But when it comes to my fantasy hoops squad and/or my betting futures consideration? Those that don’t know the past are doomed to repeat it. And, on the whole, I’m content to let others be the ones to risk repeating the recent history of the Nets and their key players.