The Brooklyn Nets have been one of the NBA’s biggest surprises this season, sitting at 4-4 on the year. Above and beyond winning games, the season’s goal is developing their young core into long-term building blocks. While many have shown bright flashes, one of the team’s presumed cornerstone pieces, Noah Clowney, has struggled out of the gate for the Nets.
Clowney’s role has been inconsistent with the Nets
As expected, Clowney has begun the season in a smaller role with the Nets. Turning just 20 years old this past July, and having spent most of his rookie season in the G-League, the expectation was that Clowney would start in a smaller role off the bench, especially given the depth the Nets have in the frontcourt. The hope is that he would take steps toward becoming the reliable stretch-4 the Nets have been craving for years.
Through seven games, Clowney has averaged 16.1 minutes per contest with a high of 21 minutes in a victory over Milwaukee and a low of 13 minutes in the Nets’ first matchup against Memphis before missing the second matchup against the Grizzlies due to a hamstring injury. With backup center Day’Ron Sharpe yet to play this season while nursing a hamstring injury of his own, Clowney has had to play more minutes at the five, and tough matchups against bigger, stronger, skilled bigs like Nikola Jokic and Nikola Vucevic have proven to be a challenge.
With the impending return of Sharpe and Watford, as well as the solid play from Cam Johnson and others in the forward rotation, his path to consistent playing time appears even more murky.
Clowney’s shots haven’t been falling
Up until this point, Clowney had checked all the boxes proving he could stretch the floor and serve as a secondary scorer. Starting in the G-League last season, he averaged 17.4 points per game and shot 33.9% from deep, roughly the minimum level of acceptable efficiency, on 2.9 attempts per game.
Last season in 23 appearances with Brooklyn, he shot 53.8% overall and 36.4% from downtown on a small diet of 1.4 three-point attempts per game. Playing a larger role down the stretch in April, Clowney averaged 12.1 points per game while shooting an astonishing 47.1% from three in seven games, leading to optimism that his three-point prowess was for real.
The final test was Summer League, which saw Clowney become much more aggressive from beyond the arc. In five Summer League contests, he averaged 5.6 threes per game connecting on a stellar 39.3% en route to an overall field goal percentage of 50% and an average of 13.8 points per game.
However, so far this season, Clowney has been ice cold. Shooting just 29.2% from deep and a frigid 31.8% overall, he has not seemed comfortable on the offensive end. This has brought questions back up as to whether or not he has the shooting touch required to play the four, which in turn impacts his long-term value.
Defensive struggles are more concerning
Clowney’s defensive rating this season of 113.7 isn’t atrocious, but it’s significantly below expectations for a player with his skill set. Lauded by scouts in the predraft process for having a unique combination of size, length with a 7-2 wing span, and athleticism that forecasted switchability, he seemingly had the building blocks to become a unique defensive weapon at the NBA level.
His supposed ability to play alongside Nic Claxton has given the team aspirations of building a dynamic front-court with two towering bigs capable of switching 1-5. However, Clowney has yet to reach Claxton’s level of efficiency which currently sits at a defensive rating of 107.8 this season.
Clowney has struggled to utilize his length to impact the game, averaging just 0.6 blocks and 0.3 steals per game while learning new head coach Jordi Fernandez’s high-ball pressure defensive system.
To be fair, the minutes he’s logged at center have resulted in some unfavorable matchups, as the aforementioned opposing bigs have been able to out-muscle the lanky 20-year-old. Still, tools alone won’t be enough for production on either end in the NBA.
It’s not time to push the panic button yet
Seven games is an incredibly small sample size, especially for a young player who is still cutting his teeth at the highest level. Drawing any meaningful conclusions from these early-season struggles would be foolish and misguided.
However, it’s important to note that all of the positive signs Clowney had racked up to this point have also come in segmented small samples. He entered the league as more projection than a finished product, and while the hopes are high, it’s too early to anoint him as a franchise cornerstone with the Nets.
His role and development throughout the season deserve a keen eye with much scrutiny to truly determine his future value, and that will become one of the more fascinating Nets’ storylines to watch this season.