The Brooklyn Nets have started the 2019-20 season with a less-than-stellar 10-10 record as of Tuesday, good for seventh place in the NBA Eastern Conference.
This certainly isn’t the start the Nets and their fans were hoping for, especially after Brooklyn picked up the likes of Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant in the offseason. But Durant remains sidelined with an Achilles injury, while Irving has missed nine of the team’s first 20 games of the season with a shoulder problem.
But as one stat shows, the Nets aren’t entirely hopeless without the two stars.
The Nets currently are 6-3 with Irving on the bench, including victories over both of Irving’s former teams, the Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers, per theScore. When Irving takes the court, however, Brooklyn is just 4-7 this season.
The Nets will have a chance to prove the critics wrong once Irving returns from injury, although it’s unclear when exactly that will be. Few details have been released about his injury, so it’s hard to know how close (or far) he is from returning to the court.
For now, however, Brooklyn has to make do sans Irving. But it doesn’t seem like it’s struggling without.
