East No. 11 | East No. 13 | Full List
No. 12: Brooklyn Nets
Last Season: 38-44
8th place in East; Lost 4-2 to Atlanta in Round 1
Before moving to Brooklyn for the 2012-13 season, the Nets tried to spend their way into contention in the Eastern Conference by trading for veteran guard Joe Johnson to go along with fellow All-Star Deron Williams in the backcourt. The following summer, Brooklyn doubled down by adding future Hall of Famers Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce.
Three years later, the Nets' experiment is at its conclusion. The decision to buy out the final two years of Williams' contract left only Johnson in Brooklyn, and his deal is up at season's end. For their $120 million-plus in luxury tax in that span, not counting the salaries themselves, all the Nets have to show is a single playoff series win. The worst may be yet to come for Brooklyn, which owes future draft picks outright or via swap rights each of the next three years.
Having lost Pierce and head coach Jason Kidd from the 2013-14 team that defeated Toronto in the opening round of the playoffs before losing to the Miami Heat, the Nets struggled in the first half of last season. At the All-Star break, Brooklyn was 10 games below .500. Fortunately, a dismal East meant the Nets were still just a game out of the playoff picture.
At the trade deadline, Brooklyn GM Billy King swapped Garnett to the Minnesota Timberwolves for more versatile power forward Thaddeus Young, a move that also saved the Nets about $7.5 million. Young proved an ideal frontcourt partner for center Brook Lopez, who averaged 22.2 points and 10.4 rebounds per 36 minutes after the trade.
Behind Lopez's production in the paint, Brooklyn had a top-10 offense after the All-Star break. The Nets went 17-13 to claim the eighth and final playoff spot in the East, setting up a first-round matchup with the Atlanta Hawks. Brooklyn was competitive in splitting the first four games of the series, and had actually outscored the Hawks to that point. But Atlanta recovered to take Game 5 at home and eliminated the Nets with a 24-point win in Brooklyn in Game 6.