The Brooklyn Nets are stranded between battling for a play-off spot (1.5 games out of the 10th spot in the East!) and battling for lottery balls (3.5 games better than the fifth worst record in the league!). Sean Marks says they’re “competing,” but also that “some of the decisions we make … may not always be in line with winning the next game or putting the most talent out there.”
One way to parse that apparent contradiction is to suppose that one of the team’s main goals for the season is to develop and assess the stable of young players on the current roster.