The Brooklyn Nets are one of the best stories of this season and general manager Sean Marks is confident his team is on the right track.
Brooklyn Nets fans should start crowdfunding for a Sean Marks statue in front of Barclays Center. Obviously, that’s a little premature, but what Marks has done as general manager has been nothing short of masterful.
He’s successfully pulled the Nets out from under the shadow of the infamous Billy King trade that set the franchise back half a decade. Now Marks is confident that the franchise is heading in the right direction.
“We’re headed in the right direction,” Marks told Tom Dowd of BrooklynNets.com. “I’ll copy Kenny (Atkinson) here where he says, ‘we’ve got a long way to go. We’re still grinding. We haven’t achieved anything yet.’ And I think that’s the mentality we’re all going to continue to have. Our players have that, the staff has that. Our guys have a chip on their shoulders. I think people enjoy maybe proving people wrong. I like the trajectory. Obviously we all do. But I think we’re humble and we realize that these things change pretty quickly and we’ve got to stay focused and driven.”
Marks knows the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference is not the end goal for the franchise. It’s a sign that the team is on its way to bigger and better things. But his work is far from over.
Despite remaining relatively quiet during the trade deadline, Marks picked up another second-round draft pick and Greg Monroe in exchange for cash considerations from the Raptors. Monroe won’t play a game for the Nets, but the second-round pick is yet another asset Marks has quietly stashed.
Furthermore, the Nets may look to the buyout market in search of a player that can help the team for the stretch run and perhaps even in a playoff series. Head coach Kenny Atkinson’s system is perfect for a stretch four so it’s possible that Marks has his eyes on a player who can fill that role.
Either way, Marks is flexing his muscles as a top-tier executive in the NBA. The Nets still have a long way to go, but the progress they are making is encouraging.
