If you thought being a Brooklyn Nets fan was hard in 2014, well, the new year hasn’t exactly been any easier. Let’s take a look at why:
Everything About 2015 Has Been Awful
Here are a few unfortunate trends from 2015 so far. I would love to go into more detail on each one other than just bullet points, but if I were to do so this piece might not be published until 2017 or so.
- The Nets are 3-11 in 2015, compared to 15-16 in the 2014 portion of the season
- The Nets have not won a single game in Brooklyn in 2015
- Brooklyn is shooting an astonishingly bad 27 percent from three in 2015, down from an only kind of bad 34 percent in 2014
- Both the Nets’ offensive and defensive ratings have been notably worse in the month of January, and they combine for a net rating of -10.5
- In 14 games in 2015, Brooklyn has eclipsed the 100-point barrier only four times
- Brooklyn has lost its last three games by 85 combined points
- In 2015 the Nets offensive rating has plummeted to 94.3 during the fourth quarter
- Brooklyn’s defensive rating has also been worse in the fourth, giving up 106.5 points per possession in January
- All of these numbers could have potentially been even worse if the game against Portland wasn’t postponed
The Nets have only one more game left in January, and it’s against the 31-15 Toronto Raptors. Let’s just try to get through that and hope that these awful numbers are a January thing and not a 2015 thing.
Mason Plumlee. Still Good at Basketball.
Despite the team’s struggles Mason Plumlee has continued to improve his numbers over the last several games, and is now shooting 67 percent with averages of 14 points and seven rebounds in almost 27 minutes per game in his last 10 contests. I wrote on Plumlee’s improved play in my last Trending in Brooklyn column, but I’m doubling down this week for two reasons:
- Plumlee is still playing well even when nearly every Net has shot the ball worse than their seasonal averages lately
- I must find at least one positive thing to write about in order to retain my sanity, and well, there’s just not a lot of positive Nets things to pick from.
But seriously, check out the field goal percentages of the team over the last 10 games:
Click to enlarge. Green text signifies a player’s last 10 games stats being better than their seasonal numbers. Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference
Of the 13 players that have logged minutes, Plumlee is one of only four players to be shooting above his average for the season, and he’s blowing that number out of the water. He’s shooting 59 percent on the season, and if he can keep up his pace from the last month he could finish the season with a field goal percentage in the 60s for the second season in a row.
January Has Not Been Kind to Joe Johnson
Joe Johnson is shooting only 37.7 percent for the month of January, which marks his worst shooting month since January of 2009* when he was a member of the Atlanta Hawks. His three-point percentage is all the way down to 31 percent as well, and he’s been unable to make up for the poor efficiency by getting to the free throw line. Johnson has shot only 24 free throws in January, compared to 38 and 40 in November and December, respectively (with the same number of games played in each month. As a result his scoring is down to only 14 points per game in the month, and if the Nets are to break out of their recent slumps they’re going to need Johnson to bounce back.
*Not including October months with only one game played.