The Brooklyn Nets are off to a brutal start to their season as they fell to 2-10 on Wednesday night with a loss to the Charlotte Hornets and things don't look like they're headed up as they may now have off the court issues to deal with. 22 year old wing Sergey Karasev is reportedly not very happy about not playing this season and wants to be traded, according to Nets Daily.
Karasev started 16 games for the Nets last season but had little to no success before tearing his MCL and requiring season ending surgery. Karasev's dad believes he is fully healed from the injury and doesn't understand why he has only played six minutesso far this season.
"It's totally confusing, Sergey is totally healthy. But the coach seems to be thinking something different: he said that he does not see Sergey as part of the team. Based on what I've seen personally - the team is in total disarray. If I went there myself even that would be better. The team has no game," said Vasily Karasev a basketball coach himself.
Because of Karasev's lack of playing time he is reportedly looking for trade opportunities because he feels he is young and needs to be playing. It is unknown if the Nets would consider trading him but the fact that they turned down his fourth year option about a month ago makes it seem as though they don't view him as a part of their future plans.
Karasev was acquired by the Nets via trade prior to last season in the deal that also brought Jarrett Jack to Brooklyn. The 6 foot-7 guard was the 19th overall pick in the 2013 NBA Draft but he hasn't gotten consistent playing time in the NBA and in the little he has gotten he hasn't shown quite enough. Karasev's dad thinks there might be political reasons why his son isn't playing.
"I do not understand how a player who last year went out and started 16 games and helped his team win, can be permanently benched and not play just based on the coach's whim. I do not know, maybe there are some political reasons," said Karasev.
Obviously this is just a case of a dad sticking up for his son as he clearly just wants the best for him but he does have somewhat of a point in that Karasev may at least deserve a shot to play. Two of the shooting guards ahead of him on the depth chart, Markel Brown and Wayne Ellington, are off to awful starts this season and have the two lowest PER's on the team at 3.8 and 7.3 respectively. We will have to see what happens but for now Karasev seems to be in pretty good spirits, at least publicly, as he tweeted out his love for Nets fans on Thursday afternoon.
Love kids and Nets fans..
