Kevin Durant announce a devastating news

Indeed, the Brooklyn Nets were 27-13, a game behind Boston for the best record in the NBA as Lewis also points out. They had won 18 of 20 after a 102-101 victory in Miami. Jacque Vaughn looked like a legitimate candidate for coach of the year.

Now, two years later, Nets fandom is experiencing as a tough a turnaround as one can imagine in the NBA. The debate now isn’t about whether the Brooklyn Nets can wind up at the top, but whether their rebuild is a race to the bottom, a tank.

“If I keep thinking about that [time], then I won’t be able to be present and [think about] what’s going on now,” said Nic Claxton who joined the team the week before Clean Sweep. “It’s easier said than done. But it’s a part of the business. I’m where I am now. I’m here for a reason, so I can’t be thinking about what was and what could be. Orlando and Houston, they’re contending teams now, that’s how we’ll be in a year or two for sure.”

So how long before fortunes turn again? No question is more important to fans. As for whether it’s a tank depends on who you talk to at HSS Training Center. No one will acknowledge the “T” word is the defining strategy for the Brooklyn Nets. Sean Marks denies the word is used in staff discussions.

But … if you’re running the show, you don’t mention it since the connotation is that your team is trying to lose to get an advantage in the June Draft.

So are the Nets tanking, you know, capture the Flagg: go ass for Ace; don’t be skillin’, think about Dylan? And does it matter what you call it? Marks isn’t denying that the Nets are very interested in those guys and others. After all, he has five picks in the 2025 mega draft and Marks himself has scouted four Rutgers games personally, seeing Harper four times and Baily twice.

Marks acknowledged to Brian Lewis last week that there’s a lot of luck, good and bad, in the rebuilding process, diverting as best he can from the tanking debate. Sure, he said in essence, losing can swing things but so can luck of either nature.

“To be frank, you’ve still got to get a little lucky. We all know that,” Marks told The Post. “The hot-button topic has always been the draft. We all know we’ve still got to get lucky. At the end of the day, the Ping-Pong balls are going to drop a certain way.

“[And] it’s health, right? It doesn’t matter what team you have, you could have the best players in the world, they’ve got to stay healthy. And you’ve got to be healthy at the right time. We’ve lived that. Some things you can control, others you can’t.”

Then, again, as the greatest GM in Brooklyn sports history, Branch Rickey of Dodgers fame, famously said, “luck is the residue of design.”