B/R considers no one on the Brooklyn Nets as ‘untouchable’ in trades
No player on the Brooklyn Nets is considered “untouchable”, according to a recent article by Bleacher Report on Tuesday. As the piece explains, B/R’s version of untouchable is a played that a team cannot do without based on the direction of the team. For example, a superstar is untouchable for a contending team while a promising young player is untouchable for a rebuilding team, etc.
Brooklyn is in an interesting place in the league right now as they having a good amount of good players and even their bench players would be starters on some teams. However, since they acquired their current roster of Mikal Bridges, Spencer Dinwiddie, Cam Johnson, and Dorian Finney-Smith to pair with Nic Claxton, the team has played around league average in most categories, including win-loss record.
Simply said, the Nets are in a place where they are too good to be a team with a high-value pick in the lottery through their own failures, but are also clearly not good enough to contend for a championship. For the time being, the team is worried about winning with one eye towards the future of the franchise to find their next superstar or two. With that being said, B/R made sure to point out the team’s two most valuable players in terms of ability and age as Mikal Bridges and Nic Claxton. However, even though both players have taken strides, they are still not considered untouchable for the following reasons:
“The Brooklyn Nets have a decent amount of talent, but only two players drew serious consideration for this discussion: Mikal Bridges and Nic Claxton. So, why didn’t either earn the designation?
Well, while Bridges has been on a tear with this team (26.8 points on 49.6/41.2/91.0 shooting), the production hasn’t led to much winning. While one can’t assume he’s merely a good-numbers-on-bad-team performer, there also isn’t evidence suggesting he can be the focal point for a contender. Even if he is the former, there aren’t reasons to believe the Nets can contend with him any time soon. If someone wanted to pay a fortune to acquire him, Brooklyn might be better off refilling its asset collection.
As for Claxton, he’s an elite defender (96th percentile in defensive estimated plus/minus), but he doesn’t have quite enough offense to be off-limits. He hasn’t been the same on that end since the Nets lost the gravitational forces known as Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. Claxton averaged 13.2 points per game on 73.2 percent shooting before the deadline and is down to 10.8 and 61.2 since.”
