The Brooklyn Nets had a solid opportunity to begin the 2026-27 NBA season with a win over a Charlotte Hornets team that was missing Coby White and Kon Knueppel due to injuries. While Brooklyn went into the game with plenty of hype given the new season and the franchise embracing its history, but there are some who could be writing off the Nets already.
"It's going to be a long, weird, disappointing season for Brooklyn Nets fans, as the team doesn't have the talent to win yet doesn't control its 2027 first-round pick," Greg Swartz wrote of the Nets for Bleacher Report. Granted, the point of Swartz's article is to give an overreaction to each of the 30 NBA teams based off their first game of the year, but it seems like Brooklyn is taking the brunt of a narrow loss to Charlotte.
"The Nets lost at home to a Charlotte Hornets squad that had to start a backcourt of Dennis Schroder and Sion James with Coby White and Kon Knueppel sidelined due to injury," Swartz continued. "Even with Julius Randle now in the starting lineup, the Nets mustered just 103 total points with Randle and Michael Porter Jr. the only two players to crack double digits in scoring."
To Swartz's point, the Nets don't necessarily have an incentive to lose games like they did last season given that they owe their first-round pick in the 2027 NBA Draft to the Houston Rockets via a pick swap. With that being said, Brooklyn was favored to beat the Hornets due to their injury woes, but they ultimately suffered a 110-103 loss with Brandon Miller and company doing what they needed to do to pull off the upset on the road.
However, it's fair to point out that there were 10 teams that lost their first game of the season in worse fashion, including the Chicago Bulls and Phoenix Suns, who lost by 45 points and 41 points, respectively. In the end, the Nets have 81 games left to play and they are likely to win more than the 20 games they won last season, but they will have to take advantage of the opportunities to beat teams suffering from injuries like the Hornets were.
This article originally appeared on Nets Wire: Is it fair to say that the Nets will be the worst team in the NBA?