ESPN: The Nets might be the worst team in the NBA
ESPN's David Thorpe is one of the Internet's foremost basketball authorities. If you want proper analysis, you go to Thorpe.
Unless you're a Nets fan. In that case, don't go anywhere near him. (Though if you're a masochistic Nets fan, you may actually like him more than this warning implies.)
Thorpe made an appearance on ESPN's online NBA show TrueHoop TV to comprise a quick Nets season preview. And in it, he wasn't all too flattering, declaring that the Nets might be the worst team in the league if the perennially injured Brook Lopez were to get hurt once again.
Here's the piece:
Lopez has missed major chunks of two of the past four years and played much of last year's first half injured. He's been plagued by foot injuries, but the Nets center was dominant during the second half of last year and still managed to play 72 games on the season.
If Lopez is healthy, much of a 38-win team will return for the upcoming season, including Thaddeus Young, who was one of the main reasons for the Nets' improved play after the All-Star break. Brooklyn certainly won't be great either way, but it's hard to imagine a scenario in which the team stays healthy and falls to the levels of the 76ers or Trail Blazers or Lakers.
