NBA preseason games sometimes feature the absurd. Since the results are meaningless, head coaches are free to experiment. During the Nets’ 123-88 rout over Israeli team Hapoel Jerusalem on Saturday night at Barclays Center, Brooklyn HC Jordi Fernandez allowed his rookie point guard Ben Saraf to stay on the floor after picking up his fourth and fifth fouls around the midpoint of the second quarter and then chose center Nic Claxton, he of the 53.7% career free throw percentage, to shoot a transition take foul technical.
Oh, and Claxton, who is 8-for-40 (20%) on his three-point attempts over his six NBA seasons, took one from the top of the key just for kicks…and made it.
Not much can be gleaned by watching these exhibitions, especially when the opponent is a completely overmatched international team. But first impressions only come around once, and with three of Brooklyn’s unprecedented five-man Draft class participating (Egor Demin and Drake Powell were inactive due to injuries), here are a few items I found intriguing:
1) A Mann with boys
Terance Mann isn’t going to have many games where he goes 6-for-7 from the field, including 2-for-2 on 3s. He has averaged double digits in points per game just once over his first six NBA seasons, all but the last third of 2024-25 with the Clippers.
What he does bring, though, is energy and know-how from competing in 43 career playoff games. At 28, he is the oldest player on what is set up to be one of the youngest rosters in league history, beating injured Haywood Highsmith by about two months.
The Nets secured Mann’s services from Atlanta in the offseason free of any player considerations. Actually, the Hawks also sent over the No. 22 overall pick in the Draft, which Brooklyn used to select Powell, as a sweetener for renting the Nets’ $47 million in salary cap space for Mann’s contract over the next three years.
At the time, the Nets just getting a 1 was considered the steal of the summer. How Mann, a Brooklyn native, would perform was an afterthought.
Well, for those fans consumed with Tank 2.0, be worried. I can see Fernandez becoming enthralled with Mann the way he was with Dorian Finney-Smith. Now, Finney-Smith is listed as two inches taller and five pounds heavier than Mann, making him a more natural 1-through-5 switch defender (though Mann did catch some minutes as a small-ball center in L.A). What matters is that Mann is going to play hard enough to impact some close games down the stretch, and I just don’t see Fernandez benching him simply to give kids like Demin or Powell the experience.
Trading Mann to get him off the team, though, would be more complicated than how the Nets excised the expiring contracts of Finney-Smith and Dennis Schroder last season. Few contending teams would be interested in taking on that commitment for a role player.
It so happens that the role Mann plays can be vital if the goal is winning.
2) Garbage (time) in, garbage out?
With 21 players in training camp, Fernandez was never going to get everyone in Saturday’s game. Among the healthy, only Fanbo Zeng, who is considered a strong two-way candidate who will surely see the court when the Nets travel to China for games against Phoenix on Friday and Sunday, was a DNP-CD.
But you can infer a pecking order by Fernandez’s rotation choices. OK, maybe Saraf started on Saturday because he’s an Israeli, but Tyrese Martin was one of the first off the bench even though his contract for this season is not guaranteed. However, he has reportedly impressed the group at practices and Fernandez is known for rewarding such efforts.
Coming in as the 15th Net to hit the floor for the final eight minutes of the blowout along with two-way player Tyson Etienne was Dariq Whithead, Brooklyn’s No. 22 overall pick in the 2023 Draft. Though Whitehead made a layup, he missed his only three-point attempt and got stripped on consecutive possessions. Otherwise, he was barely noticeable.
The Nets are unlike every other team in that they can afford to cut a guaranteed contract without fear of cap consequences. Depending on their roster decisions, it’s questionable whether they’ll even reach the cap floor by opening night.
Most Nets fans had high hopes for Whitehead, who is still only 21. Unfortunately, injuries seem to have robbed him of the athleticism necessary to compete at this level. The Nets have until Halloween before declaring their intention on Whitehead’s fourth year option that would guarantee him about $5.4 million in 2026-27.
Not that the first preseason game amplifies anything, but it wasn’t a good sign for Whitehead’s long-term Brooklyn future either.
3) Lack of speed kills
Like many coaches in the modern era, Fernandez wants the Nets to play fast. Nolan Traore, Brooklyn’s No. 19 overall pick, has a leg up on his fellow rookies simply because he has the natural quickness to satisfy his coach.
Disregarding Powell for the moment until we see him play, the other three in the class will have to convince the organization they are ready for prime time, because first impressions suggest that they are lagging.
The Nets have gone out of their way in hyping Saraf in the early stages of training camp, but practice clips have shown him routinely getting beat off the dribble by his quicker teammates and even the inferior Hapoel players were able to put him out of position to draw fouls on Saturday. Forget how Saraf was able to get back some of those possessions on the other end by manipulating his defenders with footwork and throwing dimes to Nets cutters; think about how he’s going to struggle when challenged by bigger and faster NBA players.
Demin comes in with the same concerns. And don’t get me started on Danny Wolf. I get it, he can throw some exquisite passes for a man his size (seven feet), but my lord is he slow. If he had switched jerseys before Saturday’s game and instead played for Hapoel, would you swear that he would one day make an NBA roster? You can’t convince me that if Wolf didn’t have “No. 27 overall pick” attached to his name with the guaranteed contract that he would beat out Drew Timme for the Nets’ third string center job.
Can these young players improve through arduous work with the Nets Performance Team? Sure, it’s possible, but a tortoise doesn’t just suddenly evolve into a jackrabbit. This is the NBA, where pace is a crucial measurable, not a fairy tale.
Agree that Wolf looks too slow to play in the NBA (and we still haven’t seen him go up against real NBA players).
I thought Saraf was better than you described. He showed more burst on offense than I thought, and he absolutely has craft as a PG. I give him more time to get better at the craft of D because he looks like a potential contributor on the offensive side.
Traore showed more poise and presence than he did in summer league. He exceeded what I expected.