The Brooklyn Nets came into the 2026-27 NBA season with the hope of "shocking the world" by playing better basketball than they have at any point during the current rebuild. With Brooklyn trading for former Minnesota Timberwolves forward Julius Randle, there was some hype surrounding the Nets, but after beginning the season with an 0-3 record, the team realizes that there's work to do.
"The Nets’ starting lineup was a plus-14 through their first two games and, despite some ugly starter minutes against the Pacers on Sunday, they’ve still outscored their opponents (by 1.5 points per 100 possessions) with Day’Ron Sharpe on the floor," John Schuhmann wrote of the Nets for NBA.com. Schuhmann ranked Brooklyn as the No. 28 team in the league and it makes sense given that they are still winless.
"The highest opponent 3-point rate in the previous 47 seasons of the 3-point line is 45.9%. Through three games, Nets opponents have taken 50.2% of their shots from beyond the arc, connecting on 40.3% of those attempts," Schuhmann continued. "They did have 20 3s themselves in Cleveland on Saturday, when they almost erased all of a 22-point, fourth-quarter deficit."
As Schuhmann pointed out, center Day'Ron Sharpe continues to be a positive player, but the Nets have to improve on defending the three-point line, especially with how well their opponents are shooting that shot. While some would look at a team starting a season 0-3 is not that big of a deal because there are 79 more games to play, Schuhmann notes that most of those teams don't make the playoffs.
"The Nets are one of three teams with a league-high 15 rest-advantage games this season, and the first is a visit to Boston on Tuesday. They’ve lost 21 of their last 23 meetings with the Celtics," Schuhmann wrote as somewhat of a preview of what the Nets can expect against the Boston Celtics and other teams this season. The hope is that Brooklyn was able to work on enough of their concerns to potentially have a better performance on Tuesday at the Celtics.
This article originally appeared on Nets Wire: Nets rank 28th in NBA.com power rankings after 0-3 start to season