NBA Power Rankings: Lakers desperate for bold trade deadline move; Streaking Suns

23. Brooklyn Nets

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I do believe that the Brooklyn Nets are in a little bit of trouble. At the midway point of the season, it’s been a pretty disappointing start to the year for the Nets who find themselves sitting outside the top 10 in the Eastern Conference standings.

Heading into the start of this season, there was a belief that the Nets could emerge as a dark horse threat to make some noise in the postseason. At least thus far, the Nets have been everything but that. If there’s one specific area of concern that I would be most cautious about, it’s the fact that Mikal Bridges hasn't exactly been the emerging star the team believed he could be heading into this year.

If Bridges is not going to be the star player that the Nets hope he could continue to develop into, it brings about questions for the entire build And heading into the offseason, if the Nets come to the conclusion that Bridges can't make the star leap, it's certainly going to factor into some of their bigger decisions.