Tanking has a downside, and the Nets are experiencing it now.
If they plan to grow from this, they can’t let that experience break them. Not letting this loss get them down is the job of coach Jordi Fernandez.
Brooklyn enters Thursday’s game against the Magic having dropped 9 of its last 10, one of the worst efforts in history.
They have lost by 54, 53 and 37 points since January 21, making them only the fourth team in NBA history to lose by more than 50 points in the same season.
“We’ve got to find something,” Nic Claxton told The Post. “This is not basketball. We should be NBA basketball players. We shouldn’t lose so much. We shouldn’t be brought down like this.
“So, it’s on everybody. It’s on me. I’m committed to it, too. I need to participate every time I’m out there. So, yeah, we’ve got to be better.”
Brooklyn has lost four points in the past three seasons, joining Portland from 2021-2024 as the only teams to ever endure such a disgrace.
Before the Nets face the Magic on Thursday, they will be dealing with the uncertainty of the trade deadline at 3 p.m.
Other players and teams have been distracted and distracted in the past by the approaching trade deadline, but Claxton refused to use that as an alibi for Brooklyn’s poor play.
“No. Only a few players. No, no, the deadline has nothing to do with how we’ve been doing,” Claxton told The Post. “That we just need to find a way to compete. Just compete; that’s all. I don’t think so. [so]. That is an excuse. That’s bad.”
Claxton, backup center Day’Ron Sharpe, leading scorer Michael Porter Jr. and Cam Thomas are the only players whose names are constantly in trade rumors.
The Nets’ lethargy and lack of focus has been the team’s whole.
“At the end of the day, it’s our job. So whether we win or not, we have to come in here and give it our all,” Sharpe said. “We all come in here every day, it pays a lot of money, so we have to do our job and play all night regardless.”
The Nets are the fewest team in the NBA with five first-rounders. They’ll have to take solace in the knowledge that other struggling teams hit the same mark and came out strong, like OKC who lost by a league-record 73 points in 2021-22.
Two years later, they won 57 games and three years later they won the title.
“I’ll just say, remember this when it happens, when you’re young and you get blown away,” Sharpe said. “We’ve seen it with teams like OKC. They used to lose a lot. Detroit two years ago, they were losing a lot. So just remember the pain we take from losing like this, and just build on them in the summer and build on them during your career so we don’t make the same mistakes as you get older.”
Brooklyn trailed LeBron James and the Lakers by 39 on Tuesday before trying to close it out late, losing 125-109. James, who was with Fernández when the latter was a player development coach in Cleveland, said the Spaniard is up to the task.
“He was just a sponge,” said James when Fernández lived with Cleveland. “Obviously, when Mike Brown brought him in, he was just a sponge, you could tell he was a workaholic. [head] coach.
“[You] I didn’t know if it was going to be collegiate, pro, or whatever, but he was going to be a head coach somewhere. And he got to be the head coach here and obviously he deserves it. So it’s great.”
