A Review Of The Nets' Offseason (To Date)

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In the most recent episode of the Nets’ PR puff piece “Scout”, General Manager Sean Marks talked about finding the “next Nets” in the upcoming NBA Draft.

“We’re looking for guys that have the qualities…high character, competitive individuals who play the right brand of basketball,” Marks said.

Fine traits all, but did no one notice he left out a host of physical attributes among his criteria? I mean, how about speed, athleticism, basketball fundamentals like shooting, etc.? Do we not factor those into the player evaluations too?

What are we doing here? It’s not just me asking; I can confirm that people around the league are not only questioning Brooklyn’s direction this offseason, but they’re also snickering at Marks’ hubris. In general, the sense is that Marks loaded up on players at the Draft with athleticism and/or shooting deficiencies in favor of the above intangibles, as if he was trying to reinvent the game. In my view, his selection of BYU’s Egor Demin with the No. 8 overall pick, above the consensus projection, will either further the narrative of Marks’ Draft perspicacity or lead to his future doom.

Demin attempted to dispel any previously-held notions that he was a bricklayer by draining 10-of-23 three-pointers (43.55) in three games at the Las Vegas Summer League, looking fairly smooth on the majority of his hoists. However, his 4:9 assist-to-turnover ratio was the inverse of someone whose claim to Draft Day prominence was his playmaking ability.

I’ll give Demin this: He’s heavily invested and self-aware for a 19-year old, noting on NBA TV’s broadcast of Friday’s Summer League consolation game versus Philadelphia that he needs to hit the weight room hard to be able to get into the paint and defend at a consistent NBA level. And if you had nothing better to do than watch these basketball debacles, you might have noticed how Demin rarely sat on the bench during his rest breaks, preferring to stand and exhort his teammates.

Two disclaimers before I proceed: Though there are appropriate concerns surrounding the individuals in the Nets’ record-setting haul of five first-round picks, placing a definitive label on rookies before they play real games is a fool’s errand. NBA development is awfully hard to predict outside of a few “sure things,” and none of those sure things was on the board for Brooklyn at No. 8. Until further data is available, it’s wait-and-see on all five of them.

In addition, even if it seems like major NBA business (outside of the disposition of four quality restricted free agents, including Brooklyn’s Cam Thomas, who are at the mercy of the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement and its member clubs’ lack of salary cap space) has concluded, the offseason isn’t technically over. The Nets could still pull a rabbit out of their hat to weaponize the approximately $24 million in room they can create by delaying the official re-signings of Day’Ron Sharpe, Ziaire Williams, and Thomas, using those players’ Bird rights if they find the need to go over the cap.

With that in mind, it’s hard to understand what Marks’ short-term vision is. We all know the future belongs to the “next Nets”, including all the picks at the organization’s disposal in the next two-to-three years. But what was the plan for this season to get the best value out of their Draft/cap space assets? At the moment, it appears fans are in for another half-hearted tank/competitive enterprise, which is not where NBA teams should live.

Relying on lottery luck last season got the fan base nothing but disappointment. That’s because Marks never picked a lane—start the build-up or blow it all up--and instead proverbially steered into head-on traffic. Flexibility for flexibility’s sake merely kicks the can down the road. What has been different about this offseason?

Even if Marks had chosen the latter path for this summer, understand that Utah is among the competitors who already got off to a lengthy head start. Jazz GM Danny Ainge seems to have all his chips in on AJ Dybantsa, allegedly playing a role in steering the top college prospect to nearby BYU with exorbitant NIL money. Even with flattened odds, Ainge has configured his team as if he wants the highest chance to get his man. Don’t expect other teams to learn the lesson from the last two lotteries, when play-in squads defied the odds to land the No. 1 pick and the league-worst team selected fifth overall. If there’s a one-in-a-million chance difference, NBA organizations will shoot for that advantage.

That’s clearly not how Brooklyn operated last season, opening the campaign with a host of veterans with winning pedigrees and a new Head Coach in Jordi Fernandez who got the group to compete against more talented rosters. The Nets didn’t blow the tank by winning a half-dozen meaningless games in the last third of the season—that’s going to happen in the randomness of an 82-game slog. No, it was from starting off the campaign by going 10-15 before they realized they had to trade point guard Dennis Schroder. As Thomas noted in his rebuttal to ESPN’s Zach Lowe’s critical social media post, Brooklyn was 8-10 when the scoring machine first got hurt (and then unknown Tyrese Martin went nuts in Phoenix to put the Nets one game under .500 just before they hit the season’s quarter pole). All the subsequent maneuvers/shutdowns to get to 26-56 weren’t enough against a host of clubs who threw in the towel early to play Capture the (Cooper) Flagg.

Looking at Marks’ moves this offseason to date, you have to wonder if we’re in for a rerun. For example, while many assumed that Cam Johnson, Brooklyn’s best all-around performer, could be on the move this summer, the return was expected to feature Draft capital plus unwanted personnel to match money. Marks’ pilfering of a first-round pick, used to select Drake Powell at No. 22 overall, from Atlanta to take on Terance Mann’s contract was picture perfect.

Instead, the Nets received a similar, though vastly more expensive, player in Michael Porter Jr. Denver’s 2032 first-round pick was included as the rent for Brooklyn’s cap space, which needed a bump anyway to get to the cap floor. The Porter-for-Johnson part was pretty close to a sideways move, not too unlike the Dorian Finney-Smith-for-D’Angelo Russell trade last December. Remember that the Nets went 8-9 when DLo started running the point until the All-Star break.

Once again, Fernandez has the ability to run out a rotation that can surprise teams ill-prepared to compete. He’s not going to start the five rookies because he wants to keep his reputation as an overachiever. Thomas, assuming he re-signs below his perceived market value, will be highly motivated to continue his development as a lead guard while still having a legit floor-spacer in Porter and a competent lobs-and-blocks center in Nic Claxton on his side. If Demin’s fixed Summer League stroke can translate to real NBA action, he can share the secondary ballhandler role with Porter while also needing to be respected on the perimeter. As for the last starter, Fernandez can choose between Williams, Noah Clowney, or newly-acquired Terance Mann depending on matchups. Joining the two nonstarters coming off the bench are Sharpe and some combination of rookies and pesky Keon Johnson/Jalen Wilson/Martin types. No. 19 pick Nolan Traore seems primed to get backup point guard minutes off the bat and I’d like to see Powell, the No. 22 pick who sat out all of Summer League with a knee injury, replace Johnson in the rotation, but it will have to be earned. Ben Saraf and Danny Wolf, the Nets’ back-to-back picks that completed their haul near the end of Round 1, need the most work to get to NBA speed. And somewhere along the line 2023 first round pick Dariq Whitehead might make an appearance.

That’s obviously not a playoff contender, but it isn’t a 14-win club either. Just like last season, when the Nets’ over/under win total was about 19.5, Las Vegas seems to have grossly underestimated them again, posting the 2025-26 line at 21.5. My advice: Double last season’s easy money by hitting the over.

Except was all of this summer’s work in Brooklyn’s best interest? Given the franchise’s near monopoly on salary cap space this summer, it seems like the Nets could have found a way to use it to move into more of a mid-tier NBA range while still holding onto a nice stash of picks to use in a future trade for a superstar that would put them on a more serious level. Or they could have tried to out-tank the Jazz by dumping Johnson, Claxton, et al for trash plus more picks.

Marks did neither, resorting to the kind of half-measures that will ensure that the team will be bad, but not bad enough. That’s another year of hell in my book. And if the rookies don’t show enough progress as many around the league predict, the calls will grow louder for ownership to make a change before Marks gets the opportunity to make more controversial picks.