Notes From Long-Awaited Nets Draft Night

Mallory Peak/Louisville Athletics

If the Nets’ rebuild isn’t fully erect in a few years, it won’t be because of a lack of opportunities.

Brooklyn brought its first-round Draft count to seven over the last two years with a pair of selections on Tuesday night inside their Barclays Center home. At No. 6 overall, the team’s highest slot since 2010, the Nets tabbed Louisville’s Mikel Brown Jr. Later in the evening, they used the pick swap from Monday’s trade with Minnesota to take Iowa State’s Joshua Jefferson at No. 28 overall.

Nets fans have endured two seasons of hell in the belief that the Draft, under the auspices of General Manager Sean Marks, would lead them to salvation. Though the Lottery gods didn’t seem to approve—Brooklyn’s slot dropped both times—fans understood that diamonds could be unearthed anywhere with the right evaluation and player development. However, with Houston owning swap rights to the Nets’ 2027 pick, the last of the tokens Brooklyn owes from the 2021 James Harden blockbuster, Tuesday night’s decisions were enormously consequential to whatever Marks is cooking for the resurrection.

Brown will now hold the key to the plan’s ultimate outcome. He will be Marks’ hand-picked floor leader. An athletic player with deep range, Brown’s development will have to focus on decision-making and efficiency. Because those traits were concerning in college.

That, and the back woes that hounded Brown during the season, was why I had advocated heavily for the Nets to instead choose Arkansas point guard Darius Acuff Jr., the best scorer on the board who went next to Sacramento.

Marks, though, had always seemed enamored with Brown, reportedly meeting with him three times, including a visit to his family’s home in Florida. The workout must have gone well too. For his part, Brown claimed he is 100% healthy. However, I reiterate that if the Nets suddenly hold him out of all Summer League games as “a precaution”, be scared. Marks has shown in the past that he isn’t afraid of taking injury risks, but he did bet wrong on his last swing on a questionable first rounder, Dariq Whitehead in 2023.

I can see how Brown’s highlight reel sprinkled with spectacular plays could sway many fans who support the pick. He can play fast and above the rim. When he gets hot, look out, like during a five-game stretch in February that included a 45-point barrage against NC State.

Most footage, though, didn’t show the misses. His final college numbers—a 41/34.4/84.4 shooting split with 4.7 assists and 3.1 turnovers per game, were rather pedestrian for a high lottery pick. Brown had some terrible games when Louisville faced its few tough opponents (the ACC had a down year). The back injury that forced him to prematurely end his season after 21 games obviously should be taken into consideration, but the book on him going back to high school also noted his penchant for poor shot selection.

Many Draft experts mentioned that Brown has “ideal size” for a guard, but he measured approximately 1.5 inches taller than Acuff with a 0.5 inch longer wingspan at the NBA Combine. Is that so monumental a difference? Acuff’s defensive video was pretty ghastly, but the view on Brown’s upside on that end is mostly projection, not results based. Brown’s stocks last season: 1.3; Acuff: 1.1. The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie was pretty disparaging during his film breakdown of Brown on that end, though not as much as with Acuff.

The waiting and the analysis, though, are done. Brown is Marks’—and Nets’ fans--ride-or-die. He will have the ball in his hand a ton as a 20-year old rookie because he’s probably already better at the position than the three point guards Marks selected in his uninspiring Draft haul a year ago. Expect that ride to be a bumpy one.

From my perspective, I’ll die on the hill that the Nets would have been better served going with the equally dynamic but way more efficient Acuff. But I’m willing to concede that the proof might not emerge for perhaps a decade.

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I thought Brooklyn’s process with its second first rounder also resulted in a missed opportunity. The Nets had brought in Chris Cenac Jr. for a workout in advance of the Draft. The Houston big man measured around 6-foot 11 and 240 pounds with a 7-foot 5 wingspan at the NBA Combine and converted on a third of his 2.4 three-point attempts per game as a 19-year old for a team that went to the 2026 Sweet 16. The ability to act as a floor spacer, along with top-notch athleticism and mobility, made him an ideal candidate to help with Brooklyn’s size problem.

All Marks had to do was sweeten Denver’s pot to move up two slots to cement the pick. The Nuggets, who were looking to move out of the first round to avoid the guaranteed first-year salary on their cap, partnered with San Antonio for a swap of 26-for-35 in exchange for two second-round picks. The Spurs preferred UConn’s Tarris Reed Jr. anyway.

Unfortunately, Boston swooped in to swipe Cenac off the board at No. 27 while Marks was asleep at the wheel. On the bright side, the Nets still have a half a gazillion 2s to play with over the next seven years. To do what if not that, I don’t know.

With Cenac gone, Marks pivoted to Jefferson, who is eight months OLDER than Noah Clowney, a three-year NBA veteran.

I’m not suggesting that Jefferson was a reach—he had a fine college career and impressed Marks with his playmaking as a 6-foot 8, 246-pound point forward. He showed some scoring chops as well, including registering a 34.5% rate from three-point ranges on 3 attempts per game last season. He’ll bring a level of physicality, particularly on the defensive end, to this soft team, though there are questions about how he’ll adapt to the pace of the NBA game. He might turn out to be a two-inch taller version of Jalen Wilson.

If that ends up being the case with Jefferson while Cenac develops into an integral piece on a Celtics title contender, Nets fans will have one more proverbial arrow to aim at Marks.