When the Nets re-acquired management of their 2025 and 2026 first-round draft picks final summer season, they appeared to be telegraphing their expectations for the subsequent couple of seasons.
The Nets had beforehand traded the rights to each picks — one through decide swap, the opposite as an unprotected first-rounder — to the Houston Rockets of their 2021 blockbuster for James Harden.
However in June, the Nets agreed to ship a haul of future draft decisions to Houston with the intention to make their 2025 and 2026 picks for themselves.
The weird commerce appeared to point the rebuilding Nets didn’t count on to be significantly aggressive this season and envisioned themselves choosing towards the highest of the 2025 draft, the place Duke freshman Cooper Flagg is the coveted prize.
Oddsmakers agreed, with some projecting the Nets to win fewer than 20 video games. Within the preseason, VegasInsider.com pegged the Nets for 21.5 wins — the fewest within the NBA.
However there’s a cause they play the video games.
Of their first season beneath head coach Jordi Fernandez, the Nets are 20-34. They entered the All-Star break as winners in six of their final seven video games, placing them just one.5 video games again of the ultimate spot within the Play-In Event.
However the current surge has additionally lowered the Nets’ odds at touchdown the No. 1 decide to eight.2%, in keeping with Tankathon — a lot to the chagrin of some followers.
“We do not care what they say about that,” Nets ahead Cam Johnson stated final week. “Listen, at the end of the day, the 15, 18 guys on his team have a job to do, and our job is to not try to get a draft pick. Our job is simply to win basketball games.”
Tanking wouldn’t have assured the Nets the primary decide. The NBA determines draft order utilizing a lottery system that provides 14% odds to the groups that end with the three worst information, and descending odds for the opposite 11 groups that miss the playoffs.
The Nets’ odds for the highest decide, per Tankathon, are solely the seventh greatest within the NBA. Their odds of getting a top-four decide are lower than 35%.
Ending with the No. 2 or No. 3 decide could be no small comfort prize in a 12 months by which Rutgers freshmen Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey are additionally extremely touted prospects.
Within the subsequent seven years, the Nets personal 15 first-round picks, lots of which stem from normal supervisor Sean Marks’ trades sending Mikal Bridges to the Knicks; Kevin Durant to the Phoenix Suns; and Kyrie Irving to the Dallas Mavericks.
4 of these first-rounders are for the 2025 draft: the Nets’ personal decide; the Milwaukee Bucks’ decide; the Rockets’ decide; and the Knicks’ decide.
Amongst them, the Nets’ personal decide is the one one more likely to land within the lottery. Because it stands now, the opposite three picks have the Nets choosing at No. 19 through Milwaukee; No. 24 through Houston; and No. 27 through the Knicks.
Though they continue to be with out a clear-cut famous person, the Nets entered the season flush with established NBA gamers, together with Johnson, Cam Thomas, Dorian Finney-Smith, Nic Claxton, Day’Ron Sharpe, Dennis Schroder, Ben Simmons and Zaire Williams.
The Nets jumped out to a 9-10 begin, and whereas they’ve since parted with Finney-Smith, Schroder and Simmons, they added one other confirmed participant in D’Angelo Russell in December.
Even with the current turnaround, ESPN’s NBA Energy Index offers the Nets solely a 1.3% probability of creating the playoffs.
“We have a plan in place and a vision of how we want to build this, and this is how we wanted to start,” Fernandez stated final week. “Regardless of the wins and losses in the standings, we have other wins and losses for us as an organization.”
