2025 Brooklyn Nets Preseason Preview
The Brooklyn Nets fished last season with a record of 32 wins and 50 losses. This season the Nets welcome new head coach Jordi Fernandez to lead a team that’s hitting the reset button for good after blowing up the super team of Durant, Irving, and Harden from a few years back.
(AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)
Executive Sean Marks looks to start building a team the old fashioned way after cashing on the trade value of the marquee names that played in Brooklyn not too long ago. As it stands right now Brooklyn has netted 11 first round picks and 2 additional swaps from the trade tree that began with the previous big 3. Additional assets Brooklyn has netted from this web of trades include Dennis Schröder, Cameron Johnson, Dorian Finney-Smith, and Bojan Bogdanović.
Nets fans probably shouldn’t get too familiar with any of the names that remain. Things in Brooklyn are likely going to get worse before they get better and they have a number of serviceable players that might do more harm than good on their current roster as Brooklyn hopes to land a premium draft position in what has been described as an exceptionally strong draft class. Schröder, Johnson, Finney-Smith, and Bogdanović are 31, 28, 31, and 35 years old respectfully, and all contracts that are comfortable for players of their caliber. These are the kinds of players that teams on the margins could look to acquire around the trade deadline this year, and it Brooklyn would be eager to push their value down the line to a timeline that makes a little more sense for the rest of their assets.
There is a question looming around Nicolas Claxton’s role on this team long term. The 6th year center has spent his whole career with Brooklyn and appeared to be on an upward trajectory until regressing last year, taking more shots further from the rim and hitting them less frequently than the year before. Claxton will almost be 30 by the time his current contract in Brooklyn is up, and it’s possible that Brooklyn is just beginning the hit there stride again at that point. Claxton, who is on a very team friendly contract if he can continue on the trajectory he was on, might be another asset Sean Marks looks to move in order to push this teams future peak down the road a year or two. A lot of it may hinge of on the development of Cam Thomas, who was able to put up 22.5 points a game in his 3rd season, but did so on high volume and low efficiency. If Brooklyn decides Thomas isn’t the guy, it’s another strike that says Claxton doesn’t fit the timeline either.
The Nets highest draft pick since moving out of New Jersey was 17. They’ve tried two different iterations of mortgaging their future to bring on big names in that time frame and neither has really panned out. Now they’ve mostly recovered their future draft picks as while as acquired a number picks that could prove to be quite valuable in the future. They will get off Ben Simmons contract after this season if they don’t somehow trade him to a team in a bigger rush to free up some cap space. Then they’ll be in a position to wait it out and let young players develop while trying to resist bringing even more big names to the big apple.
