Forgotten (Terance) Mann arrives in Brooklyn

It’s more of a return. Terance Mann was born in Brooklyn… but raised in Lowell, Mass…

A lot has happened since Shams Charania announced that the Brooklyn Nets had agreed to participate in a three-team deal with the Boston Celtics and Atlanta Hawks the night before the NBA Draft…

From that point to this, the Nets off-season news overwhelmed things.

• The next day, they surprised the NBA World by using all five first picks on Egor Demin, Nolan Traore, Drake Powell (with that 22nd pick), Ben Saraf and Danny Wolf and traded their lone second to the Phoenix Suns for two future seconds.
• Two days after that, they exercised team options on their four non-guaranteed deals: Tyrese Martin, Keon Johnson, Jalen Wilson and Drew Timme.
• Then another two days passed before made a second trade with the Denver Nuggets, swapping Cam Johnson for Michael Porter Jr. and Denver’s unprotected first in 2032, when presumably Nikola Jokic is beyond his peak.
• The same day, they also agreed to identical, new two-year deals (with a team option in year two) with Ziaire Williams and Day’Ron Sharpe.
• And in announcing the three-team deal that brought Mann and Powell to Brooklyn three days ago, they revealed that the only asset the Nets contributed was “cash considerations,” not further described but likely the minimum “touch” required for multi-team deals: $1.1 million. That’s it. No picks, no two-ways, no stashes.

The Nets of course will have to pay Mann’s remaining contract — $47.0 million over three years and Powell’s $16.7 million over four, $6.9 million guaranteed over the first two. So what are the Nets getting in Mann who arrived in Brooklyn Wednesday to become the Nets oldest player at 29, two years older than Porter Jr. three older than Nic Claxton.

In simple terms, he is a 6’6” 3-and-D player who has career averages of 8.1 points, 3.5 rebounds and 1.9 assists in 412 games, 169 of them starts. His shooting splits over his career are a respectable if not eye-popping 50/36/78. He also has a reputation for disruption, averaging a steal per 36 minutes over the course of his career. He swiped a career-high tying four steals in a win over the Wizards in November, marking his fourth four-steal outing of his career.

Overall though, last season had to be a disappointment for him. He began the season with the Los Angeles Clippers but lost his rotation spot and was dealt at the deadline to the Hawks in a trade that sent him and “Bones” Hyland to Atlanta for guard Bogdan Bogdanovic and three second-round draft picks.

He upped his minutes and output in Atlanta, averaging nearly 10 points a game, but missed out on the playoffs for the first time since before the pandemic. In his four previous post-seasons, he had played 43 games and in the 2021 Western Conference Finals had his best game ever — 39 points to get the Clippers to the conference finals for the first time in 50 years.

This season, however, he struggled big-time in the Hawks two play-in games, scoring a total of seven points on 2-of-10 shooting in 35 minutes. And although the Hawks were 16-14 after he was traded, Mann’s on/off deferential was notable — in the wrong way — as Joshua Buckhalter of Soaring Down South wrote two days before Shams announced the trade.

With Mann on the floor, the Hawks’ offense ranked in the 89th percentile. However, their defense ranked in the 8th percentile. With Mann off the floor, the Hawks ranked in the 48th percentile offensively and 53rd percentile defensively.

Mann is unlikely to reach the conference finals or even the play-in this season in Brooklyn, but he’s likely to get minutes off the bench and be asked to serve as a leader on a roster that is almost certainly going to be the league’s youngest. His added minutes should give Mann the opportunity to renew his career. Based on his work ethic and defense, he should fit nicely into Jordi Fernandez’s culture.

He also has been a leader in the community back in Lowell with his Terance Mann Complete Player Foundation. That will play well in Brooklyn.

It’s going to take a while before we know if Mann is a keeper or simply an expensive salary dump to acquire Powell who by all accounts the Nets really wanted at No. 22. With the Nets’ rebuild, all parties can have patience.