For the majority of the second half of the NBA regular season, the Brooklyn Nets have been hovering around the 12th and 13th seeds of the Eastern Conference. After being in competition for a spot in the Play-In Tournament, a rough stretch of basketball saw Brooklyn drop in the standings to the point where the team isn’t going to play postseason with less than 10 games left.
The most frustrating part about the Nets’ recent stretch of games is their stagnation in the standings. Brooklyn is competing with the Philadelphia 76ers for top-five odds in the 2025 NBA Draft Lottery, but it seems that every other night they flip between each other in the standings.
The Nets’ stagnation is reflected in NBA.com’s latest power rankings from John Schuhmann. Brooklyn was ranked 25th in the league last week and remains in that spot this week as well.
“The Nets had the league’s No. 1 defense over the last four weeks before the All-Star break, but rank 19th on that end since the break and are in position to finish in the bottom 10 defensively for the 11th time in the last 17 seasons,” Schuhmann wrote.
“They’ve been one of the league’s most aggressive defensive teams, ranking first in the percentage of ball-screens (26%) that they’ve defended with “blitz” or “show” coverage, according to Second Spectrum tracking. There have been times when they’ve done a great job rotating out of the aggressive coverage, but there’s obviously room for improvement and opportunities for opponents to beat them with ball movement.”
On the offensive side of the ball, the Nets rank 28th in that rating, only putting them above the Charlotte Hornets and Washington Wizards. Brooklyn is averaging just 105.1 points per game this season (which ranks dead last) and is averaging 104.5 points in its last 10 games.
The Nets have less than eight games remaining on their schedule, and while some improvement would give some sort of promise for the future, the goal is for Brooklyn to beat out the 76ers for a better shot at the No. 1 overall pick. Every game matters at this point.
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