The NBA spent much of the early part of the 2015-16 season worrying about the Philadelphia 76ers, who are in their third year as one of the league's worst teams with no apparent end in sight. Right in the same division as the Sixers, however, the Brooklyn Nets loom as a much greater long-term problem for the league.
As bad as things are now for the 10-28 Nets, who fired head coach Lionel Hollins and reassigned general manager Billy King in a housecleaning on Sunday, they stand the potential to get much worse because Brooklyn doesn't have the kind of draft picks and young talent the 76ers have spent the last three years accumulating. And that could turn one of the NBA's two New York franchises into an albatross for years to come.