Brooklyn’s Distressing Development

Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images

Back in the honeymoon phase of Sean Marks’ tenure as General Manager, the Nets built a reputation as a development factory.

It wasn’t just players with high (i.e. first-round picks) pedigrees who flourished here after being deemed underachievers like D’Angelo Russell. Brooklyn’s work with disregarded guys was lauded around the league.

Joe Harris and Spencer Dinwiddie were the most prominent examples as former second round picks who were scooped up off the street and then evolved into solid rotation pieces for playoff teams. Even Brook Lopez, once a traditional low-post center with a history of foot problems, picked up a three-point shot in Brooklyn that probably extended his career a half decade or more.

Like many relationships, things change. Marks let go Head Coach Kenny Atkinson, known then as a development guru; the team (appropriately) pivoted to pursuing superstars and the more experienced side men they were accustomed to performing with; and now, following that epic failure, Brooklyn and Marks are back to Square 1. The Nets are the NBA’s youngest team, with a corresponding record (15-45 after Sunday’s 106-102 loss to Atkinson’s Cavaliers) that wouldn’t look so ugly if fans could glimpse rays of hope in the form of player improvements.

As you all know, this rebuild differs from Marks’ situation coming into the job ten years ago, then labeled as the worst in NBA history, in that Brooklyn has a bundle of first-round picks on its roster and pending in future years. Hence, the stakes are higher.

What’s problematic is that the relatively minimal opportunities on the franchise’s development scorecard since the halcyon days have not been all that impressive. Obviously, the five 2025 first-round picks are still on Chapter 1 and all I can judge with reasonable certainty is that the 1% per day improvement goal set by Head Coach Jordi Fernandez has not come close to being met and that Ben Saraf’s tale won’t end well. As noted in prior posts, I concur that Egor Demin, Nolan Traore, Drake Powell, and Danny Wolf all have upside that may or may not come to fruition through arduous labor and injury luck. We’ll see.

But among the others on the roster, who would you count as a development success for Marks? Maybe Nic Claxton, the first selection in the 2019 Draft’s second round? Except I would argue that he is still in the bottom 50% (being kind) of the league’s starting centers, so it’s not as big of a hit as many have hyped.

Day’Ron Sharpe matured from a late first round pick in the 2021 Draft into a capable backup big, but the results haven’t been good when he’s been asked to step into a more featured role like Sunday’s contest with Claxton sidelined due to a right thumb sprain. Noah Clowney, a 2023 first rounder, will turn 22 in July, so he might get there even if his shooting efficiency and on-ball defense in Year 3 has been disappointing. Better than Dariq Whitehead, who was taken by Marks with the pick after Clowney and didn’t make it out of this past training camp after suffering through multiple injury rehabs. And let’s not forget that the Nets gave 2021 first rounder Cam Thomas all the chances they could to get him to expand his game beyond his volume scorer superpower before giving up last month via a waiver.

The Harris and Dinwiddie reclamation project stories have also dried up. Ziaire Williams can’t ever be considered a legitimate 3-and-D wing without the “3” part of the equation—his unacceptable 31.2% conversion rate from deep is barely a blip above what the former lottery pick shot during his first three seasons in Memphis. I once had faint hope in 2023 second rounder Jalen Wilson but have come to accept that he is the prototypical tweener with a severe case of the law of diminishing returns. And unlike in past seasons, none of the two-way guys have earned a late call-up, which says something given the team’s rottenness. Where have you gone, Keon Johnson, Tyrese Martin, and David Duke Jr.?

The Nets are auditioning two new guys acquired at last month’s trade deadline for virtually nothing and have given Grant Nelson, an undrafted rookie who hung with the organization from the July NBA Summer League through the Long Island season in the G League, a 10-day contract. It’s early, but I have yet to see anything from Josh Minott, whose contract has a team option for next season, or pending free agent Ochai Agbaji to make me believe they’ll be keepers, especially if Marks’ plan for the offseason is to shop for upgrades that require roster slots.

As for Nelson, his first impressions were intriguing, but how about we allow for more than 30 minutes of NBA action before jumping on bandwagons. In the tiny sample size, the hustle and basketball IQ have stood out, but he is so rail thin that he made me think about an old joke a friend once made about former Pirates pitcher Kent Tekulve that a picture of him hiding behind a rake would just be a rake. A very tall (listed as seven feet) rake, in Nelson’s case.

Nelson is also on the older side, turning 24 in a few weeks. That will also be used against him despite the fact that some people are late bloomers. Harris didn’t break out in Brooklyn until his mid-to-late 20s; Dinwiddie from 23-to-26.

What matters is what we see on the court. Can they dribble, pass, and put the ball in the basket? Can they defend? Do they understand how the game is played? I’ll take a 24-year old Nelson if he can bulk up to where he isn’t overpowered in the paint and improve his stroke to drain 3s at or above league average. That’s on Nelson and the Nets’ Performance Team staff under Fernandez’s oversight.

Young players tend to need time to develop those skills. We get it. At some point, though, fans want to see a quality final product, or at least indications that such product(s) is on the horizon. Brooklyn, unfortunately, has been relatively barren in that regard for quite some time, a distressing turn of events from when Marks’ development blueprint was held in high esteem.