Some players and teams have gotten distracted and disrupted in the past by the looming trade deadline, but Claxton refused to use that as an alibi for Brooklyn\u2019s poor play.<\/p>\n
![\"Nic](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Nic-Claxton.jpg\")
Nic Claxton shoots a hook shot during the Nets\u2019 blowout loss to the Lakers on Feb. 3, 2026 at Barclays Center. Corey Sipkin for New York Post<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. It\u2019s only a couple of players. No, no, the deadline has nothing to do with how we\u2019ve been performing,\u201d Claxton told The Post. \u201cIt\u2019s just that we just need to find a way to just compete. Just compete; that\u2019s all it is. I don\u2019t think [so]. That\u2019s an excuse. That\u2019s a bad one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Claxton, backup center Day\u2019Ron Sharpe, leading scorer Michael Porter Jr. and Cam Thomas are the only players whose names are regularly in trade rumors. <\/p>\n
The Nets\u2019 lapses and lack of concentration have been team-wide.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, it\u2019s our job. So regardless of whether we\u2019re winning or not, we\u2019ve got to come in here and give it our all,\u201d Sharpe said. \u201cWe all come in here every day, it pays a lot of money, so we\u2019ve got to do our job and perform every night regardless.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Jordi](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Jordi-Fernandez.jpg\")
Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez looks on during the Nets\u2019 blowout loss to the Lakers on Feb. 3, 2026 at Barclays Center. Corey Sipkin for New York Post<\/p>\n
The Nets are the youngest team in the NBA with five first-round rookies. They\u2019ll have to take solace in knowing other tanking teams took similar beatings and emerged stronger, like OKC suffering a league-record 73-point loss in 2021-22. <\/p>\n
Two years later, they won 57 games and three years later they won the title.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll just say, just remember this when it happens, when you\u2019re a young guy and you get blown out,\u201d said Sharpe. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen it with teams like OKC. They used to lose a lot. Detroit two years ago, they were losing a lot. So just remember this pain that we\u2019re taking from losing this way, and just build on it during the summer and build on it during your career so we don\u2019t have the same mistakes as you get older.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFollow all the basketball buzz in Brooklyn\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Brooklyn trailed LeBron James and the Lakers by 39 on Tuesday before trying to make it close late, losing 125-109. James, who was with Fern\u00e1ndez when the latter was a player development coach in Cleveland, said the Spaniard is up to this task.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was just a sponge,\u201d James said of Fern\u00e1ndez\u2019s time with Cleveland. \u201cObviously, when Mike Brown brought him in, he was just a sponge. You could tell that he had a hell of a work ethic. You could tell he knew the game and you knew at some point that he would be a [head] coach.<\/p>\n
\u201c[You] didn\u2019t know if it would be collegiate, pro, whatever the case may be, but he would be a head coach somewhere. And he\u2019s made it to being the head coach here and obviously it\u2019s well deserved. So it\u2019s pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tanking has an ugly side, and the Nets are experiencing it right now. If they plan to grow…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3767],"tags":[7,670,247,3803,248,6,671,2728,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-583712","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn-nets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-brooklyn-nets","11":"tag-brooklynnets","12":"tag-jordi-fernandez","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-nets","15":"tag-nic-claxton","16":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116017071955675193","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}