Kenny Atkinson knows a thing or two about what the present-day Nets are going through.

Back in 2016, Atkinson took over as head coach of a rebuilding Brooklyn team that wasn’t too far removed from the days of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Joe Johnson.

“We just threw a bunch of guys out there, and they made a ton of mistakes, and we didn’t win hardly any games,” Atkinson, now the head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers, said before facing the Nets at Barclays Center on Friday night.

“I think of Joe Harris. Joe Harris was, like, a disaster the first year. Like, ‘Can this guy play in the league?’ There were a bunch of guys in that bucket. We had the luxury of being able to throw them out there, though. There’s no better development road than that.”

The Nets went 20-62 during that 2016-17

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