In the first installment of its "Summer Buzz", ESPN Insider predicts the Nets will wind up the season as the NBA's 25th best team, just ahead of the Wizards, Pacers, Raptors, Pistons and the lowly Timberwolves.
There's little new in the analysis by Ric Bucher and John Hollinger. Avery Johnson "will whip the talented but young Nets into shape". Free agency "was a failure, pure and simple." Derrick Favors has "has a world of potential". Travis Outlaw is a good addition but "overpaid". They're "stuck in sort of a limbo" in Newark for two years and if delays in Brooklyn "certainly cost the Nets a legitimate shot" at LeBron James. Overall, the franchise is "still largely regarded as backward". Last year, the 25th best team, the 76ers, won 27 games.
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Timberwolves, Pistons, Raptors, Pacers, Wizards, Nets, projections and previews - Ric Bucher & John Hollinger