May 12 has come and gone. The borough of Brooklyn did not levitate as we had hoped. Brooklyn’s Nets in fact lost ground in Chicago, dropping from the sixth best odds in the Lottery to the eighth slot in the Draft. Nothing you can do about it. The lottery did what the NBA wanted: discourage tanking. It was third straight lottery where the team with the worst record wound up with the fifth pick, etc. etc.
All that said, the Nets still have a mid-lottery pick in a generational draft, the first time that’s happened in forever, another four picks — three of them in the first round — along with between $45 million and $60 million in cap space, an owner with a proven willingness to spend, a very good, perhaps great, head coach, experienced front office with a solid draft record .