Nic Claxton, offensive hub?
The veteran center handed out a game-high 10 assists in the Nets’ 119-101 win over the Pelicans on Saturday night, to go along with game-highs of 11 rebounds and three blocks.
He scored 14 points to notch his second triple-double.
Claxton became the first Net with multiple triple-doubles in a season since James Harden (nine) and Kevin Durant (four) back in 2021-22, which must seem like a lifetime ago to Nets fans.
He’s just the second center in team history with multiple career triple-doubles, after Shawn Bradley’s five from 1995-97.
The Nets handed out a season-high 36 assists, one shy of their best last year.
“The ball was really moving. Guys were making shots. It was one of those feel-good games for everybody. And definitely these past three games, we’ve been pretty solid,” Claxton said. “We have a few lapses here and there, but we definitely have a lot that we can build off of.”
Claxton has handed out 81 assists against just 20 turnovers in 497 minutes alongside Michael Porter Jr., an absurd 4-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio.
But in the 197 minutes he played without Porter, that fell to 22 assists against 15 turnovers.
The Nets’ update on Cam Thomas’ strained left hamstring was to wait two more weeks for another update.
An MRI showed progress in the healing and he was cleared for noncontact on-court work, but won’t be updated again for another two weeks.
But his eventual return to the floor begs the question of how much the Nets will adjust to him?
And how much can they convince him to remake his iso game to their new egalitarian style?
“That’s a good question,” Jordi Fernández said. “Obviously his superpower is the ability he has to score. At the same time, we always want to see playmaking efficiency and improvement on defense. So all those things were important at the time. Now his being out, the team continues to get better and play and play in a [good] way. The skillset; he’s very unique and very good at what he does. But at the same time, now the group is taking positive steps.
“For the most part, I’m very happy with the whole group. And now when he comes back, it’s going to be on me to figure it out how we introduce him into the group, and thinking that the most important thing, it’s always the group. And then from there [ensure] you’re willing to do whatever it takes to help the group and obviously improve yourself. That’s how this works: Team success will bring your own success as well.”
Nolan Traore had 30 points with six assists in Long Island on Friday, hitting 4-of-5 from deep.
The rookie is averaging 18.1 points and 5.4 assists in the G-League on .460/.393/.760 shooting splits, albeit with 4.1 turnovers.
Herb Jones, Jordan Poole, Dejounte Murray and Zion Williamson were out for the Pelicans.
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