Kenny Atkinson knows a thing or two about what the present-day Nets are going through.
Back in 2016, Atkinson took over as head coach of a rebuilding Brooklyn team that wasn’t too far removed from the days of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Joe Johnson.
“We just threw a bunch of guys out there, and they made a ton of mistakes, and we didn’t win hardly any games,” Atkinson, now the head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers, said before facing the Nets at Barclays Center on Friday night.
“I think of Joe Harris. Joe Harris was, like, a disaster the first year. Like, ‘Can this guy play in the league?’ There were a bunch of guys in that bucket. We had the luxury of being able to throw them out there, though. There’s no better development road than that.”
The Nets went 20-62 during that 2016-17 season, but the growing pains turned out to be necessary for a young core that included Harris, Caris LeVert and Spencer Dinwiddie.
Brooklyn made the playoffs by the third season of Atkinson’s tenure.
Atkinson believes today’s Nets, in their second season under head coach Jordi Fernández, are in a comparable situation.
At June’s NBA draft, the Nets became the first team in league history to make five first-round picks — Egor Demin, Ben Saraf, Nolan Traore, Drake Powell and Danny Wolf — and they kept all five players.
The Nets have not made the playoffs since 2022-23, which is the season they parted with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant before the trade deadline.
“This seems similar here, where they’re like, ‘OK, the best way to do this is to get these guys in an NBA game and take their lumps, and they’ll learn.’ And then year two they’ll get a little better, and year three you hope you’re in the playoff hunt,” Atkinson said. “I would think that’s the road map.”
INJURY UPDATES
The Barclays Center debuts of Powell and Wolf will have to wait.
Both missed Friday night’s home opener due to ankle sprains, with Jordi Fernández describing them as day-to-day.
“We’re not concerned, but day-to-day,” Fernández said.
Asked what grade of sprains Powell and Wolf are dealing with, Fernández replied, “We don’t grade.”
Wolf also missed the Nets’ season-opening loss in Charlotte with a left ankle sprain, while Powell sprained his right ankle during the fourth quarter of that game after scoring two points in seven minutes.
GAMBLING SCANDAL
Thursday’s arrests of Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier and Damon Jones due to gambling-related allegations were a talking point during both coaches’ pregame press conferences at Barclays Center.
“That’s obviously not the news you want to hear,” Fernández said of the scandal. “I think the NBA does a great job every year with doing the gambling meeting and the rules and so and so forth, because we deal with young players. I think the league followed the proper steps. We support it.”
Billups, the Portland Trail Blazers’ head coach, and Rozier, a guard for the Miami Heat, were both placed on immediate leave by their teams.
Jones, a former player and coach, is not currently employed by an NBA team.
“I’m just gonna stay away from that and not comment on it,” Atkinson said. “It’s not my area of expertise.”
HOF BOUND
Mr. Whammy is headed to the Hall of Fame.
The Nets mega-fan, whose real name is Bruce Reznick, and his late wife Judy Reznick, who died in 2023, will be added next year to the James F. Goldstein SuperFan Gallery at the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.
Mr. Whammy, 89, has been a Nets season ticket holder for nearly three decades, and his hand-written signs and taunts to opposing free-throw shooters are a staple at Barclays Center.
