Before the start of the 2020-21 season, the Nets were the league's number one favorite to win the championship, but they only ranked 10th in the latest official website battle list.
In fact, the 10th ranking may contain a "strong team impression score" for the Nets, because in the first five games of the season, the Nets have only achieved a record of 2 wins and 3 losses, 27th in the league in offensive efficiency and 18th in the league in defensive efficiency.
The Nets' performance on the court is so struggling, it can't help but remind people of Kyrie Irving, who was away from the team because he refused to be vaccinated, and Nets owner Cai Chongxin also spoke about Irving in an interview with the Pacers before the game today.
Tsai said he had not been in touch with the other side since the decision not to let Irving play for the time being, and he respected Irving's beliefs, but in order not to distract the team, he had to make a difficult decision. If there is no change in policy in New York, Irving will have to be vaccinated before he can return to the team.
Tsai also stressed that the Nets hope that Irving can become a part of the team and hope that he will be vaccinated as soon as possible, but at the same time he also believes that even without Irving, the Nets can compete for the championship.
At a time when the Nets are mired in a quagmire and cannot extricate themselves, when it comes to competing for the championship, Cai Chongxin's words seem to be a bit self-deceptive. After a bad start to 3 wins and 3 losses, should the Nets compromise with Irving?
First of all, it must be admitted that Irving's absence has a great impact on the Nets. Although Owen has a lot of ideas that are difficult for ordinary people to understand, so he has made a lot of moths, but when he can play, his role and contribution are beyond doubt.
Last season, Irving's 1,451 points overall was the highest on the team, far ahead of second-place Joe Harris' 974 points. At the same time, his steal count also ranks first in the team, assists rank second, and even the 7.4 victory contribution value is also the first in the team.
But without Irving, wouldn't the Nets really be able to win? Not quite. The data shows that after getting James Harden through a four-team trade last season, the Nets played a 9-3 performance in a game without Irving, which is not amazing, but decent enough.
The Nets struggled with the start of the season for a number of reasons, and Irving's absence was one of the big reasons, but not all of them. In other words, even without Irving, they could have played better.
The first is Harden. In the first week of the new season, the impact of the rule adjustment has become one of the hottest topics in the league, and Harden, as a negative model, has been particularly affected, and in the first five games of the season, he has only averaged 3 free throw opportunities per game, less than half of last season, showing obvious discomfort with the new version.
In addition, Harden's own state is also very problematic. As head coach Steve Nash said, harden has too little time to practice this offseason because of last season's playoff hamstring injury. Since the beginning of the season, you can clearly see that he is out of shape and lacks explosive power, which has a direct impact on his breakthrough and shooting.
The current Harden is more like the Harden who barely returned from injury in the playoffs last season, rather than the MVP candidate Harden who led the team to sing triumphant songs in the regular season with Durant and Irving absent in turn. In the case of Irving's departure, the Nets theoretically have two giants, but in fact only Durant is still strong, and Harden's contribution when he is on the court is a negative, both of which are said.
The stats confirm this: In the first five games of the season, Harden's true plus-minus (BPM) was -1.4 and the irreplaceable value (VORP) was 0, and in the 168 minutes he was on the floor, the Nets lost to their opponents by 32 points!
The change in the coaching staff is also an objective reason for the Nets' performance struggle. Nash is inexperienced as a head coach and has not shown outstanding talent in tactical design and on-the-spot adjustments, mike D'Antoni was in the assistant coaching group last season, helping Nash a lot, but this summer D'Antoni left the team, which is a big loss to the Nets.
I've written an article before that the Nets don't have to rush to fire Nash right now, not that Nash's coaching work is impeccable, but that the team has more pressing problems to solve. And even if Nash is fired, it may not be able to find a better replacement candidate, but also face a new run-in process, for now, do not rush.
Nash's problems also include his tuning of the new squad: Bruce Brown, who did a great job last season, didn't even make the regular rotation in the first two games of the season, and that's only because Nash wants to get to the bottom of the others first.
In addition, how to allocate the playing time of veterans such as Aldridge, Green and Millsap, and how to arrange the rotation of new signings such as Patti Mills, Jevon Carter, de Andre Bembry are still in the process of continuous attempts and changes. As for Nicholas Clarkston's truce due to illness, it was a complete accident.
If Irving agrees to vaccinate and officially return to the team, of course, it can solve and cover up a series of problems that the team currently has and help Nash survive the crisis. But the key issue is: Until there is no change in New York's epidemic prevention policy, even if the Nets are willing to compromise, they can only let Irving play in the team's away games.
The Nets certainly know how much of a loss the lack of Irving is for the team, but they also realize that if Irving doesn't get vaccinated, he can only play in away games, and going in and out of the rotation lineup will also cause damage to the team. The reason why they made the decision to temporarily let Irving leave the team was that "the lesser of two evils" was the lesser of two evils.
The Nets did have some struggles, but the regular season started just a week ago, and it's too early to draw any conclusions. Today's race against the Pacers is a prime example.
Today, the Nets beat the Pacers 105-98 at home to re-improve the record to 50%, but objectively speaking, their overall performance is not good. However, in the course of the game, the Nets still showed some good signs, giving people a vague hope of finding a way out of the predicament.
Today's Nets start is still very bad, Harden made frequent mistakes in the first quarter, and after the start of the second quarter, they lost consecutive rebounds because of internal losses, and they once trailed their opponents by as many as 16 points 30-46!
But after that, Nash made adjustments to the formation on the court, and arranged for two veterans, Millsap and Aldridge, to sit on the inside line, suddenly increasing the height of the lineup, and the effect was immediate. Harden then also played aggressive, scoring consecutive points, and had already contributed 21 points at the end of the half, and the Nets reversed the decline in one fell swoop, leading by 3 points into the halftime break, and never fell behind again.
In this game, Harden won a total of 19 free throw opportunities, more than the first five games combined, so it took only 11 shots to score 29 points. Is it the league that is back "conniving" with Harden? Not. Harden just adjusted his mentality, increased his aggressiveness, played more decisively than in the previous games, and the referee blew and continued without blowing. Instead of hesitating, he is always obsessed with the referee's sentencing scale.
As Harden had complained before: "A foul is a foul." "The league has indeed tightened restrictions on deliberate fouls, but that doesn't mean it doesn't blow shot fouls. For example, today Harden's two three-point shots were fouled, whether it is a new rule or an old rule, it should be a foul, it is a foul, even if you watch the video replay repeatedly, the referee will still make the same decision.
So far this season, the league's 30 teams have averaged a record low in free throws per game, and it looks like the impact of the new rules has been significant. But there are sample problems, there are also referees overcorrected, the scale of penalties is too loose, as the season deepens, these will slowly adjust.
In fact, since the start of the new season, it is not only Harden and the Nets who are struggling. Trae Young, Doncic and Lillard are all stars affected by the new rules, but they will also slowly find ways to prove their game influence again.
In the West, another popular team, the Lakers, is echoing with the Nets, starting with a difficult start of 2 wins and 3 losses; the Nets' opponent Pacers today, also because of injuries, coach changes and other reasons, from last season's playoff team, to today's loss after only 1 win and 5 losses; even if the lineup is stable, the style of play has not changed, the first four games of the season have only played 1 win and 3 losses performance.
The Nets want Irving back, but hopefully he's been vaccinated and 100 percent reinvested, rather than expecting him to solve all of the team's problems by playing one game off.
Without Irving, the Nets don't seem to be very good, but only half of Irving, I'm afraid it won't be much better.