Brooklyn Nets: Best and worst-case scenarios for the 2019-20 season

The 2019-20 Brooklyn Nets have a high variance in potential outcomes, based on team chemistry, internal growth from young players, and Kyrie Irving

The feel-good, cinderella Brooklyn Nets team of last season is no more. This Brooklyn squad that features a likely hall of famer in Kyrie Irving and injured, but arguably top 15 all-time player Kevin Durant, is now box office. The national media’s attention will be all over this team all season.

While much of the Nets’ future success hinges on the long-term health of Durant and the whims of the mercurial Kyrie Irving, this season’s projections should ultimately be tampered down, because of Durant’s injury.

Some columnists may project him to return in the regular season or postseason, and produce at a near All-Star level, but I don’t see him returning at all, and certainly not returning to play more than 20 minutes per game.

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In a grounded, realistic best-case scenario, Irving plays as well as, or even slightly better than the past few years, stays healthy, is named an All-Star game starter, and his play complements that of emerging studs Spencer Dinwiddie and Caris LeVert.

I recently predicted Irving and Levert would form one of the East’s best scoring duos, and combine for over 40 points per game. In a best-case scenario, Dinwiddie wins 6th Man of the Year, Joe Harris continues his awesome regular season shooting, De’Andre Jordan accepts a high-minute bench role and he and Jarrett Allen provide 48 minutes of awesome interior defense and lob-catching en route to the Nets fielding a top 10 defense and top 5 offense by most metrics, and competing with the Milwaukee Bucks and 76ers for the 2nd seed.

If Giannis Antetokounmpo gets injured, causing the Bucks to drop below the third seed, and the Nets pull off 50 wins, there’s a world in which they reach the Conference Finals, before falling to the deep and huge 76ers.

In this scenario, Durant is either cleared to play but doesn’t (out of an abundance of caution), or plays 20 minutes per game in the playoffs, flashes good chemistry with his teammates, and enters the 2020 offseason healthy, and ready to dominate the following year.

A ground, realistic worst-case scenario involves either a serious injury to Irving and/or Levert, or horrible chemistry that makes them have to scratch and claw for a final playoff seed with the Magic, Pistons, and Pacers.

In this scenario, Dinwiddie regresses from elite 6th Man to a league-average bench player, De’Andre Jordan’s playing time hinders Jarrett Allen’s growth, and Taurean Prince – the team’s only true small forward – fails to produce at either forward spot, and the team finishes slightly under 40 wins.

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Ultimately, I think the East will be a traffic jam of the Nets, Celtics, Heat, and Raptors finishing within three games of each other for the 3rd-6th seeds. Durant likely won’t play in the regular or postseason, but the Nets will win their first-round series in 6 or 7 games on the strength of Irving’s clutch shooting, before falling to either the 76ers or Bucks in 5 or 6 games in the second round.

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