PHILADELPHIA — With the season over, Nets coach Kenny Atkinson can finally exhale.
With the offseason starting, now GM Sean Marks kicks into overdrive.
He’ll have a lot of decisions to make. Some will be tough, and could be downright unpopular.
After the Nets’ blowout defeat completed a 4-1 first-round series loss to Philadelphia on Tuesday, the Sixers go on to face the Raptors while the Nets come home to ponder just how far away they are from the NBA’s upper echelon. And how they can get there.
After getting a firsthand look at the Sixers’ star power, adding a max free agent such as Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving or Kawhi Leonard would be the most obvious answer.
“It is what it is. I think every organization wants to take the next step being better than they were,” said D’Angelo Russell, joining Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Ed Davis, DeMarre Carroll, Jared Dudley and Shabazz Napier as Nets free agents.
While Dudley said he “hoped” to come back, he also understood that the Nets have bigger fish to fry.
“I loved my New York situation here. … I’d have no problem coming back here. I don’t say that on every exit interview,” Dudley said. “Brooklyn has to do what’s best for them. If I’m them, I’m going big-game hunting for the big fish, then you can fall in line.”
Where does that leave Russell? His 3-of-16, minus-31 nightmare in the biggest game of his career is hardly a ringing endorsement.
The young guard has bought in, worked on his body and his defense, and become an All-Star, the first one the Nets have developed since Brook Lopez in 2012-13. But he’s got a $21.1 million cap hold, and could get a max offer from a point guard-hungry team.
That would be $27 million, which league sources have intimated is what Russell wants. The Nets haven’t shown themselves to being convinced he’s worth that much, and could well let the market decide.
“He’s part of it,” Dudley said. “Anytime you can have somebody 22, 23 on your roster who’s just starting and the sky’s the limit, a lot of people are going to want to play with D-Lo.”
Marks has a ton of tough calls, and may need to move Allen Crabbe (at the cost of a pick and/or young player) to free up cap space. Either way, he’ll be backed by ownership that expressed pride in how the Nets are back to playoff relevance after a terrible stretch.
“It is great,” Onexim CEO Dmitry Razumov told The Post. “The fact that we didn’t enjoy every moment we had it, it’s a fun experience.”
“Being here again now, with a young team and all the young talent here it’s a different thing. Especially with being at the bottom, climbing to the top, it’s just different. And after having experienced the bad early, their development curve was just great.”