Nets Fans Should Expect a Rocky Start to Kyrie Irving Era in Brooklyn
The Brooklyn Nets will be one of the most talked about teams during the 2019-2020 season thanks to an off season where the team signed marquee free agents like Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and DeAndre Jordan.
The Nets had a great summer, but that does not mean the team will be able to come out of the starting gate firing on all cylinders.
The Nets play nine playoff teams from the 2018-2019 season during their first 19 games this season. The stretch of games is from Opening Night on October 23 to a home game against the Boston Celtics on November 29.
The playoff teams the Nets will face in their first 19 games are the: Indiana Pacers (twice), Houston Rockets, Detroit Pistons, Portland Trailblazers, Utah Jazz, Denver Nuggets, and the Boston Celtics (twice).
Head Coach Kenny Atkinson will have his work cut out for him getting the Nets new acquisitions to mesh with their returning players.
Irving and Jordan will have to shoulder a brunt of the load this season for the Nets on both the offensive and defensive end of the floor until the team could reach their full potential. Other players expected to contribute for the Nets during the early part of this season are Spencer Dinwiddie, Joe Harris, and Caris LeVert.
If the Nets struggle out of the gate, it would not be the first time in recent years that an NBA team struggled to play well as a unit after bringing in so many new pieces the previous off season. For example, the 2010-2011 Miami Heat went 11-8 in their first 19 games. This was a shockingly underwhelming start to the tenure of the "Big 3" which saw LeBron James and Chris Bosh join Dwyane Wade in Miami.
Eventually, this Heat team found their groove and it led to four consecutive NBA Finals appearances and two NBA titles.
Net fans should try to exercise a degree of patience with this year's Nets team. Many of these Nets players have not played one second of basketball together, and it will take some time to see where each piece will fit into the puzzle.
To make matters worse, the Nets will have to find their footing playing with one another while going through a gauntlet of playoff teams during their first month of the season.
Even after what is sure to be a rough start to the Kyrie Irving era in Brooklyn, by the end of the year the Nets will still find themselves in the hunt for a top four seed in the Eastern Conference.
