The tank officially ended Wednesday night. With the Toronto Raptors 30-point win over the Charlotte Hornets, the Brooklyn Nets will enter the May 12 draft lotter with the sixth best odds at securing Cooper Flagg (9.0%) and a top four pick (37.2%.) That’s it. End of story.
The Nets also are now set at No. 36 in the second round — the lottery has no effect on seconds. It’s based purely on record. That leaves the Milwaukee Bucks pick as really the only question left. Currently, it’s at No. 18. Mathematically, it could fall to No. 22 or rise to No. 17, but realistically. it’s likely to be No. 18 or 19. There’s a slim chance that the Knicks pick could rise to No. 25 from No. 26, but again it’s unlikely. NOTHING the Nets can do will affect any of the team’s picks. And we’re not talking about ties until the conclusion of Sunday’s finale.
So with that out of the way, they can return to finishing the season and evaluating all their free agents. On Tuesday night, they had a nice win vs. the New Orleans Pelicans (who look set for the fourth pick.) It was straight evaluation with the Nets starting Nic Claxton and the kids and it worked out well. Trendon Watford finished with 22 points, Reese Beekman had 10 assists and Drew Timme and Dariq Whitehead continued their strong end-of-season play with a combined 30 points, Whitehead raising his 3-point percentage for the year to 42.9%, a positive for his confidence and development which are intertwined.
Tonight, it’s the Atlanta Hawks. They still have things to play for like playoff seeding. They’re currently in eighth just ahead of the Chicago Bulls who’ve won seven of their last 10.
Where to follow the game
YES Network on TV. Gotham Sports on the app. WFAN on radio. Tip after 7:30 PM.
Injuries
Nic Claxton (ankle), Day’Ron Sharpe (knee soreness), Cam Johnson (back) and D’Angelo Russell (ankle) are all out. Everyone else is available other than Cam Thomas (hamstring) and DeAnthony Melton (ACL).
For Atlanta, Trae Young (Achilles) is listed as probable. With the final playoff spot in jeopardy, expect Young to play.
The Game
The Nets lost game one in Atlanta on opening night and beat the Hawks in game two a month ago at Barclays Center. This is the last meeting between the two teams.
The Nets are three games left including tonight. Same with the Hawks. Like we said, the Atlanta has something to play for and on paper, you’d think Brooklyn does not, but the players sure do. Of those available, one, Trendon Watford, is an unrestricted free agent, another, Ziaire Williams, is a restricted free agent while five others are on team options: Keon Johnson, Tyrese Martin, Jalen Wilson, Maxwell Lewis and Drew Timme. A lot of money and careers are at stake here.
For the Hawks, it’s been another mediocre season and there are concerns that Trae Young, while leading the league in assists and assist percentage, has dropped off as a scorer. He’s still averaging 24.3 points a game, but as Hassan Ladiwalla of Peachtree Hoops wrote a couple of days ago, a deeper dive indicates the 26-year-old has not been scoring as efficiently.
Trae Young’s offensive talent is indisputable, and this season he has cemented his status as an ‘All-World’ passing virtuoso – leading the league with 11.6 assists per game. His 45% assist percentage* ranks no. 1 in the league and is the fourth highest mark posted by an NBA player in the last five seasons.
That being said, for a player who entered the league with a reputation as a dynamite scorer, who averaged nearly 30 points per game as a 21 year-old in his second season in the NBA, the degree to which he’s struggled with his scoring efficiency in year seven cannot be ignored, and to me, it’s one of the biggest question marks regarding his long term value as an undersized, offense-first guard.
This season, as you can see in the table below, Young’s effective field goal percentage (or eFG%, 48.6%) ranks dead last amongst the NBA’s high-volume shooters*.
Maybe it’s the injuries or just the continual lack of success in Atlanta. Young has not expressed a desire to leave and he is owed $95 million over the next two seexasons — the second a player option, but his name keeps circulating as a superstar who might want new scenery this summer.
And indeed, once again, the Hawks are limping into the playoffs or play-in. They lost a critical game to the Orlando Magic two nights ago, basically ruining their chances at moving into the seventh seed. Now, they have to worry about the surging Bulls passing them and dropping them once again into the play-in. They’re only 4-6 in their last 10.
For the Nets, expect Dariq Whitehead to once again get big minutes and big opportunities with so many veterans out. As our Collin Helwig wrote of Whitehead two nights ago, this may finally be his time.
[I]t’d take some Home Alone 2 style brick throwing for Whitehead to tank his percentage down below 40% for the year. While that “year” will only be 20 games assuming he appears in all of Brooklyn’s next three contests, it’s still measurable progress for what’s been one of the team’s slower developmental projects, hampered of course by three surgeries in 22 months between August 2022 and January 2024.
“It’s gonna be to continue to take care of my body and conditioning,” he said post-game. “That’s gonna be big for me going into the offseason, whatever it may be, doing whatever I can to make sure next year I’m coming in and there’s no thoughts or talk about me, being the best shape I could possibly be in my life. So just taking this summer, like I said, one of my first summers since high school being able to go out there and train, work on things. So just taking advantage this summer to make sure I come back even better.”
Such are the priorities in Game 79.
Player to Watch
When Sean Marks flew to Australia on a scouting trip in November, one of the future prospects he reportedly got to see was Dash Daniels, a 6’6” 16-year-old who is 2026 draft-eligible. No doubt, Marks liked Dash Daniels elite defense and his heritage. Daniels is the younger brother of the “Great Barrier Thief,” the Hawks’ Dyson Daniels who is good a wing defender as there is currently.
Again, Hassan Ladiwalla on the case for Daniels as the DPOY, countering arguments that the Hawks overall defense should hurt his chances.
Never mind the fact that Daniels is on pace to average over threes steals per game this season – something that hasn’t been done since 1991. Don’t worry about the fact that he is about to obliterate the single-season “deflections” record of 315, with 427 deflection (and counting) this season.
Forget about the fact that despite Daniels’ rampant defensive activity, he rarely finds himself in foul trouble, averaging just 2.4 fouls per game. You don’t need to know that Daniels plays the majority of his minutes next to Trae Young, a defensive sieve who’s D-EPM* ranks in the fourth (!) percentile amongst all players this season.
The DPOY is usually awarded to some big man like Rudy Gobert. In the last 30 years, perimeter defenders have won the award only five times. It will be difficult to deny the 22-year-old now … and it appears in the future.
From the vault
Since this season’s highlight in many ways was Vince Carter weekend back in January, here’s one more reminder of his career. On March 11, 2020, the same night that the NBA announced it was suspending the season because of COVID, VC played his final game … for the Hawks in Atlanta.
After fans chanted, “We want Vince,” he entered the game in the last seconds and hit the final three of the game at age 43.
The NBA returned, but he did not.
More reading: Peachtree Hoops and SBNation NBA.
