Nets’ Silence On Draft Night Wouldn’t Be Worst Thing

AP Photo/Frank Franklin II

The consensus projection among NBA Draft experts for the 2024 class is not good. As in, potentially historically underwhelming. Sure, there have been outliers that excelled as pros in even the worst Drafts through the years and, as it is with every sport that conducts these events, no one really knows how well or poorly any of these prospects will pan out.  

Still, even with the constraints of the league’s collective bargaining agreement, where you’d think that every club would covet acquiring talent on rookie contract deals, it sure seems like teams can’t get rid of these picks fast enough. Social media is awash with rumors of teams looking to trade out of the first round. Even Houston, which owns Brooklyn’s No. 3 overall pick from the 2021 James Harden trade, has allegedly been shopping it in exchange for high-end veteran talent. With less than 36 hours to go as of this writing, the Rockets haven’t had any takers.

So if you had to pick a year where the Nets had to forfeit their picks, this would be right up there. Brooklyn may be the host venue, but the Nets will be silent (though Barclays Center will certainly erupt during the Knicks’ three selections, including two in the first round) during the two-day affair.

Or will they?

Nets General Manager Sean Marks rarely stands pat around Draft time, and some pundits are speculating that there are certain players in this class whom Marks feels are worth an investment. It would not be out of the ordinary for him to throw out something like a pair of future 2s to a team looking to dump their mid-20s pick.

Marks may have established a superior record of Draft hits on similar past picks, but this is a case where he should be very, very careful before making a commitment. Going that route could have an impact on the organization’s long-term vision, assuming it tracks with mine.

From my perspective, the franchise’s most prudent path out of the abyss created by the dismantling of the failed Superstar Era is to push their chips to next summer. By then, Ben Simmons’ anvil contract will be off the books and the Nets will go from a team deeply concerned about the luxury tax to one that will have a fairly clean salary cap sheet.

Looking at the Nets’ future cap situation on Spotrac.com, there are currently only two players (wings Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson) under guaranteed contracts for 2025-26. Free agent center Nic Claxton could make it three if he re-signs in the coming days. Dorian Finney-Smith has an approximately $15.3 player option that he is expected to decline (should he even be here past February’s trade deadline) and Brooklyn’s three 2023 Draft picks (Noah Clowney, Dariq Whitehead, and Jalen Wilson) have team options.

Under a most-likely scenario, Brooklyn will then be armed with the space and Draft capital (seven tradeable first-round picks in the next five years) to be free to pursue a multi-pronged plan to return to relevancy. I get that banking on obtaining stars (or even legitimate rotation pieces), either through trades or free agency, is risky, but so is a teardown. Many Nets fans seem to gloss over the multiple additional years of excruciating pain that will be incurred from all the losing with no guarantee of an end-game payoff. For instance, for those obsessed with trading away Bridges yesterday, such a move will only set the program further back, requiring the team to go three or more years before they’d be ready to say, “You know what we need now? A guy like Mikal Bridges!”  

I just don’t see Nets ownership signing off on that longer-term approach, not when tanking is off the table—Brooklyn won’t control its own first-round pick until 2028. There really isn’t a logical reason to put this fan base through another lengthy rebuild when we’re just one year away from intriguing possibilities.

(Note: I keep reading the “reporting” that the Rockets have offered/continued to offer up some version of a trade where they returned all of Brooklyn’s picks back to get Bridges. Who knows if it’s real? None of it came from Woj or Shams. To me, Houston seems to be all talk.)   

How can I tell that maximizing the 2025-26 cap space is a Marks priority? Look at wing Cam Johnson’s contract from last offseason—his cap hit declines by $2 million for that season… and then goes back to the $23.625 million he’s earning this year in 2026-27. It’s quite possible that should the Nets and Claxton agree on a new deal, Marks will reprise such a payroll distribution. To properly continue this strategy, I also don’t expect the Nets to extend guard Cam Thomas early, as the new contract will surely exceed his relatively low $12.1 million cap hold as a restricted free agent next summer.

Trading into the end of the 2024 Draft’s first round means the Nets would be guaranteeing a three-year contract that will put them on the hook for an approximately $3-4 million cap hit on the 2025-26 sheet, depending on the slot within the rookie scale. This on a low-odds dice roll in terms of the player developing into a major contributor by Year 2. Better for the Nets to save the cap space by using this coming season’s roster spot on a veteran minimum player whose rights can be renounced in 2025, when Brooklyn will again be open for big business.