Johnson, Ellington, Larkin and Sloan are all bad players. Those aren't losses.
And we're really doing per game averages when one guy had Favors and Gobert ahead of him suppressing his playing time? Ok then... That's a fools errand but have at it. Their replacing Robinson with their 1st round pick from a few years ago, Jack's injured awfulness with Lin, the Larkin abomination with Vasquez, getting back RHJ, upgrading defensively at PF because Young was a bad defender, and getting a coach who isn't the east coast version of Byron Scott.
This is a team that was barely breaking double digit 3 point attempts per game for the first month or two getting a guy who's from the Spurs tree, that's a massive upgrade.
Talk about spin! You should be in sales. I'm sure the Nets ticket office could use your help.
(1) Yes, we are going to talk about per-game averages when the player in question is going to be 29 years old and has been in the league 6 years for two different teams. Expecting a breakout season from such a player is possible but unlikely.
(2) They are replacing Robinson with an untested, coming-off-an-injury 1st round pick from a few years ago. This may or may not be an upgrade.
(3) They get an upgrade with Lin over Jack. This is, however, the equivalent of replacing lima beans with plain cauliflower. There is a reason Lin is going to be on his 6th team in 6 years and it is not because he is a good player.
(4) They are replacing Larkin's awfulness with Greivis Vasquez's awfulness (another guy on his 6th team).
(5) They do get back RHJ. It was not like he was a major impact player last year though.
(6) There is no possible way anyone could consider them "upgraded" at PF at this stage. That's laughable.
Anyone can make the argument that virtually any team is better at this point in the offseason unless that team loses a superstar like OKC or Miami. But when you look at a team and compare it to the rest of the league it's hard to see how the Nets suddenly are a significantly better team than their competition. At best the Nets have a more cohesive roster this year rather than some considerable upgrade in talent level. But compared to the other bottom feeders in the East they lost ground. The 76ers added Saric, Bayless, Henderson and the #1 overall pick in the draft. The Knicks think they're a "superteam" now. Orlando added Ibaka among other pieces. The Bucks have better, younger talent than anyone outside of Lopez.
We will see once they play the games. But Vegas has the Nets as the overwhelmingly worst team in the league and the guys who do this with literally hundreds of millions of dollars on the line are rarely wrong. It happens every so often but I'll stick with the odds the experts set in this case.
The Nets are simply a bad team. Without Lopez for the year they would be contenders to set the all-time worst mark.