With five days left till Thursday’s 3:00 p.m. ET trade deadline, the Brooklyn Nets have:
- the youngest roster in the NBA, the average a little more 23 games:
- four of the 20 youngest players in the league, the sixth (Nolan Traore), eighth (Ben Saraf), 11th (Egor Demin), and 19th (Drake Powell) plus two 21-year-olds who like them are on a rookie deal( Noah Clowney and Danny Wolf);
- A total of as many as 32 draft picks going forward, most in the league, including 13 firsts, 10 of which are tradeable immediately;
- Likely a high lottery pick in the loaded 2026 Draft, plus as many as three mid-to-high second rounders:
- $15.3 million in cap space through the start of free agency, still the most in the NBA, then perhaps as much as $48.8 million next season, per Keith Smith. Still top three or four.
- Michael Porter Jr., Nic Claxton, Day-Ron Sharpe;
- An ownership group (the Tsai and Koch families) who have a combined net worth of $95 billion;
- Oh yeah, they play in New York City.
Alas, they also have only 12 wins.
Do you really believe that all those assets, all that flexibility, the Nets won’t play some role in the Giannis Antetokuonmpo trade speculation? The front office and ownership are going to dismiss the possibility of acquiring a top 5 player, even with injury and contract issues? They didn’t sacrifice the past two years without fantasizing about Giannis in black-and-white!
We don’t know but in the past few days, the Nets have nudged their way into the Greek Freakout (trademark pending) conversation, either as a facilitator — friend with draft picks, so to speak — to an actual suitor for the 31-year-old who’s won two MVPs and the Finals MVP.
Brian Lewis spoke with two (serious) league officials who suggested that they believe the Nets are in it to win it.
“The Nets make a lot of sense for him,” one Eastern Conference assistant GM told The Post. “They have some good future picks. [They] could, in theory, trade five future picks, keep this year’s pick, shut him down for the year? Tank?”
The GM said he believes that if there is a deal, the actual parameters would fall outside the speculation … that Michael Porter Jr. would be the key for the Nets.
“I’d speculate that Claxton and [Terance] Mann are the outgoing salary and Porter stays,” the assistant GM told The Post, adding, “But that’s not based on inside info.”
Michael Porter Jr. has been the subject of a lot of speculation over the last few days with speculation his $38.0 million deal this season would be a big help in both matching salary and addressing the loss of the 6’11” athlete from Greece.
That said, Shams Charania, Marc Stein, Jake Fischer and Lewis have reported, almost in chorus, that the Nets are NOT/NOT interested in moving MPJ who they and their fans have become fond of.
Brian Windhorst was the latest reporter to say while there’s all those assets sitting there the Nets want to keep Porter.
Putting it that way implies that not this may not be posturing. More than one reporter has said that assuming the Nets get who or what they want in the June Draft, they’ll start the move from rebuild to contention. Another source of Lewis said that this now just may be the right time.
“Then this is their moment,” the source said. “Really depends on if they decide that their aimless tank is over. They could sure make the best offer.”
At the end of the day, though, no one is currently reporting that the Nets have made an offer. But oh those draft picks, as Frank Isola alluded to on YES pregame Thursday pregame.
“I did some reporting on this,” said Isola once the top Daily News basketball writer, “The Bucks have yet to received a ‘wow’ offer,” implying that the front office at Fi-Serve Arena is going to play hard bull once the nut-cutting routing accelerates as we get closer to the deadline.
“You hear about the Warriors, you hear about the Heat , but I think the Brooklyn Nets would be involved,” Isola said unsolicited. “I should say be in play because Milwaukee,, from everything I heard, are looking for young players and draft picks and be ready to rebuild completely. So when you think about the assets the Nets have in play and don’t rule out the Goldens State Warriors as well.”
Isola said the Bucks could also wait until the summer when teams will have more flexibility.
As we reported Thursday, Windhorst believes the Nets will ultimately make an offer.
“Brooklyn has 10 tradeable firsts and Michael Porter Jr. and 11 tradeable firsts as of draft night. Do we think Brooklyn will make an offer,” the ESPN’s top NBA insider asked amidst a back-and-forth among three ESPN writers. “I think Brooklyn will seriously consider making an offer.”
We also don’t know how Antetokounmpo feels about the Nets as a final destination. He wants to win more titles and the Nets are far from that. Also, we don’t know how the Nets see him. (Two years ago, Brooklyn wanted everyone to believe they were a natural fit for Damian Lillard. It was all a smoke screen.)
As for Brooklyn once again using their assets to facilitate deals — they’ve made four salary dumps since July — the general impression that this is more likely than a trade that would bring Giannis to Barclays. Among the assets Isola noted, is the cap space. Keith Smith this week did a rundown for Spotrac of where teams stand with the aprons and luxury tax threshold. The bottom line for the Nets is that around 10 teams could gain a lot of relief with salary dumps as long as the draft assets are good.
The Nets have flexibility going forward both now and at the Draft. Have they had the famous “internal conversations” about Giannis? How can you think they have not.
Meanwhile, speculation re: Day’Ron Sharpe grows. The most recent is a possible deal with Oklahoma City who is looking for a big man after losing three of four. Increasingly, there’s belief that the 6’9” big could fetch a first rounder. Just this week, it was revealed that Sharpe has the highest offensive rebounding percentage in league history at 18.3% surpassing both Jayson Williams, the former Net, and Dennis Rodman, the Hall of Famer.
