What looked like marked improvement over last season’s league-worst campaign — even despite knee surgeries to both starting guards — has stagnated and gone sideways.
The Nets had to spend their All-Star break stewing over a seven-game losing skid, and bring a 19-40 record into the second half of the season. They’re on pace for 26 wins, just six more than last season and two games worse than Las Vegas’ projections. But they’ll be lucky to do that unless they turn the momentum around.
Jeremy Lin’s season-ending ruptured patellar tendon and D’Angelo Russell’s two-month knee surgery rehab cost them early, but they’ve dropped 11 of their past dozen after injuries to Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and Caris LeVert.