For the Nets, this season is all about starting a rebuild.
It’s unclear how many of the players from this roster will even be around long term, when that process is done.
But Noah Clowney is one of the few that has a chance.
And he reminded everybody why Monday, scoring a team-high 19 points and snatching five rebounds to help lead the Nets to a 111-108 win over the Lakers at Barclays Center.
It snapped a seven-game skid that was the longest in the NBA and the Nets’ worst of the season.
“As a group, we just didn’t want to lose,” Clowney said. “Me personally, I know my shot wasn’t falling at the start of the game. So I had to find a way to impact the game otherwise. So I started crashing harder, trying to get the ball out quick to get us going when I get defensive rebounds, offensively just trying to get us extra possessions.”
Nights like this are why it’s incumbent upon the Nets to give him a chance to prove what he has down the stretch.
If this is going to be a lost season — sacrificed in hopes of growing — then the Nets need to give playing time to a 20-year-old who still has room to grow.
“Yeah, we know what he’s able to bring to the table,” Cam Johnson said of Clowney. “He can shoot the ball. He understands the game. He’s growing in that department. And you know, for him to come back and have an impact like he did, I mean, it’s tough. Anybody who knows [realizes that].
“The kid’s 20 years old, he’s young. It’s difficult to come back from being out for a while and to find your flow, and I think it was a little tough on him maybe the first couple minutes out there, but he kept his head up, and stayed with it and made some big play for us tonight was a big reason we came away with the win. So we got to give him a lot of credit on that end.”
Monday marked just Clowney’s second game over the past six weeks.
He had missed 15 straight with an ankle injury suffered on Jan. 27.
Clowney didn’t return until Saturday’s 105-102 collapse at Charlotte.
He logged a scoreless 18:06, going 0-for-5 from the floor — all from deep.
That’s part of the issue.
While Jordi Fernández’s belief in his players does buoy their confidence, the problem is Clowney has to do more than just shoot.
“[They’ve told me] just keep striving to be better. Gotta shoot more consistently,” Clowney said. “I want to be able to get to the rim, finish better, close out defense. I want to be able to close out and contain anybody.”
Even in his limited action last season, he showed promise as a rim-runner and excelled at rim protection.
But his blocks and rebounds per 36 minutes are both down, and his shooting percentage has plummeted from 53.8 percent to just 36.8 percent.
Yes, proving he could space the floor was mandatory in order to coexist with noted non-shooters Ben Simmons and Nic Claxton.
Simmons is long gone, but Clowney may have gone too far, boosting his 3-point attempts from 1.4 last season to 5.6 entering Monday.
Claxton’s shooting percentage will improve; his form is fine.
He just needs to continue rounding out the rest of his game.
A 2023 first-round pick, he showed promise at the end of last season, but struggled to make an impact at power forward after Dorian Finney-Smith’s departure opened the door for him.
Finney-Smith has been a huge boon for the Lakers, while Clowney was coming off the bench again Monday behind Ziaire Williams.
But with Williams a restricted free agent — and having a fairly hefty default qualifying offer of $8,353,153 — it would behoove the Nets to force-feed Clowney as many minutes as possible.
Especially in a year where there’s no pressure to win.
Only to grow.
