Brooklyn Nets GM Sean Marks didn’t conceal the Nets’ intentions of dropping video games this season to maximise what they get from their 2025 NBA Draft choose.
The Brooklyn Nets are 13-26 this season, getting off to a aggressive begin regardless of eager to tank. They’re at present twenty fifth within the standings, 6.0 video games forward of thirtieth place. Given the NBA Draft lottery offers the very best probabilities to the underside three groups within the lottery, the Nets want to seek out themselves in that blend.
Brooklyn Nets GM Sean Marks is aware of they should get essentially the most out of the stacked 2025 NBA Draft as potential. He didn’t conceal the staff’s tanking intentions in a latest interview with the New York Submit’s Brian Lewis.
“We’re going to need to be systematic with a number of the selections we make. They usually might not all the time be in keeping with successful the subsequent recreation or placing essentially the most expertise on the market.”
Marks straight referenced needing luck for the Brooklyn Nets to land the highest choose within the Draft even after tanking.
“To be frank, you’ve nonetheless obtained to get a bit fortunate. Everyone knows that. The recent-button subject has all the time been the draft. Everyone knows we’ve nonetheless obtained to get fortunate. On the finish of the day, the Ping-Pong balls are going to drop a sure means.”
Essentially the most the Brooklyn Nets can do is put themselves in the very best place for the Draft. That may’t occur if the staff doesn’t have one of many three worst information within the NBA, so their tanking is about to grow to be extra blatant.
Tanking groups within the NBA are sometimes essentially the most energetic on the commerce market. The Brooklyn Nets have a number of veteran gamers who is perhaps higher off on a contending roster this season as a substitute of putting up with a staff rebuild.
The staff’s veteran core is being damaged up. Dennis Schroder and Dorian Finney-Smith had been traded to the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Lakers in December 2024. Cameron Johnson is the subsequent main participant anticipated to be dealt, with Johnson averaging 19.5 factors and 4.3 rebounds this season. Johnson has just lately been linked to groups just like the OKC Thunder, Golden State Warriors, and Memphis Grizzlies.
Gamers resembling Cam Thomas and Nicolas Claxton are younger sufficient to be part of the staff’s future core. Nonetheless, it’s exhausting to see the Nets refusing to commerce both if the provide is true. It’s exhausting to say any participant on the present roster is ‘secure,’ however the staff will prioritize buying and selling veterans like Johnson and Bojan Bogdanovic for draft property or younger gamers.
If the Brooklyn Nets needed to, they may have made a run on the Play-In Match. They had been 9-10 by the primary 19 video games regardless of the tanking intentions of the staff from the beginning of the season. Their veterans had been clicking they usually had been difficult the very best groups within the NBA. This type most likely expedited trades to ship Schroder and Finney-Smith to new groups.
They’ve gone 4-16 since their sizzling begin to the season. The Brooklyn Nets’ 111-112 OT loss to the tanking Utah Jazz final evening showcased precisely how badly they need to fall to the underside of the standings. A proverbial white flag was waived within the recreation, because the Jazz took the win.
The Brooklyn Nets made it clear they might tank this season after they acquired their 2025 first-round choose in the summertime. The Houston Rockets had management over it because of the James Harden commerce however the Nets reacquired it to streamline their 2024-25 season.
Given the first-round picks they gave as much as get this choose again, they need it to yield the very best fruit potential. That fruit appears to be Duke Blue Devils’ Cooper Flagg – the projected No. 1 choose within the Draft. Propsects resembling Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper are additionally extremely regarded.
The Brooklyn Nets are 5.0 video games forward of the Twenty eighth-ranked staff (Toronto Raptors). If they need a top-three choose within the Draft, they should speed up their tank to make up misplaced floor.
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