Things are bad, objectively bad. The Nets have lost 118 games in two years, having missed the post-season three straight seasons. There’s not an All-Star, past or current, on the roster. No matter what you believe, their decision to draft five rookies in the first round continues to be excoriated. Going back further, they haven’t won more than 45 games in any of the last ten seasons. They’ve won a single playoff series in that stretch.
Then, there’s this non-fun fact from Nets Insider if you want to go wayway back…
Well, something didn’t give on Lottery night so going into the 2026-season, a couple of Nets losses and Timberwolves wins and Brooklyn moves to the top of that list. Ugh.
While the plan to get into the top three of lottery odds succeeded, the tank ultimately failed Sunday when the Nets fell to No. 6 in the Draft, three spots lower than what they had hoped for. The effect on everyone from the owner to lowest fan was devastating.
Read what Bucks beat writer Mike Owczarski, the Bucks beat writer who was in the Draft Room, wrote about Joe Tsai’s reaction when, by just one ping pong ball, the Nets’ season-long hopes were dashed.
The most expressive reaction, however, came Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai who slumped in his chair and stared dejectedly at the board.
Fans, of course, did more than slump in their chairs. They threw them.
Of course, the palpable fan anger is about more than Lottery luck. The drop has become the most recent manifestation of the team’s history of not just bad luck, but bad losses, bad trades, bad picks and now a growing reputation as a cursed franchise. It is the cumulative effect. (When NBA writers see your team as cursed and pitiable, that’s pretty bad.)
Plans for the coming season may have to be adjusted, too. After all, the Nets had hoped that getting a top three or four pick would improve their ability to snag free agents or players unhappy with their current situations.
And so, fans want the GM fired and/or the owner to sell, a new start! This week we saw this being marketed…
Not very flattering. The reality is there’s no indication that Sean Marks is in trouble. Tsai has been telling people he is patient as an owner and just two days ago, the Nets hired a third assistant GM, Makar Gevorkian, after going with two for well over a decade. That’s a commitment to the current front office.
Falling from a top three or four pick to the sixth isn’t necessarily devasting, as history shows. Hell, it looks like the NBA Finals may feature lead guards who were picked 11th (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander) and 33rd (Jalen Brunson.) Plus the drop was bad luck. You can recover from that. The next five picks or so are seen as solid prospects if not franchise-changers. And it will be years before we know just how lucky or unlucky the Nets were in Chicago.
They could still succeed. They have plenty of money and play in New York. Also, the Nets could wind up with a terrific player at No. 6 or move up or down or add a second first round pick, get a steal in the second round.
But all the positives that the Nets enjoy — money, picks, location, etc,, respected performance and medical teams, .— are not likely to assuage anyone at the moment. Fans are neither naive nor stupid. They want wins and considering their loyalty, they (aka we) deserve them.
Performance now
So, our next chance to gauge success in this Draft and the rebuild will be the two, count ’em, two Summer Leagues, which start July 4 with a back-to-back-to back holiday weekend at the California Classic in Sacramento. Then, after a three-day respite, they’ll move to Las Vegas for the NBA Summer League which will run from July 9 through 19. The Nets will play a minimum of five games there.
So at the least, the front office, pundits and fans will have eight games to measure all the Nets youngsters which will likely include whoever they take in the Draft plus the Flatbush 5 and some but not all of the various two ways and 10-days who played for them last season, players like Chaney Johnson, E.J. Liddell, Malachi Smith, Tyson Etienne, maybe Grant Nelson. Of the group, all but Etienne are 25 or younger. He turns 27 in September.
Yes, Egor Demin has suggested that his situation is uncertain, but we’d be surprised if he doesn’t play. After all in their March medical update on his plantar fascia issue, the Nets stated they expected him to be “a full participant in the summer development program.”
Don’t expect Josh Minott or Ochai Agbaji to play. They are approaching their fifth career years. Also, Minott has a player option and Agbaji will be restricted free agent.
Sounds like a lot and certainly it could be … but that’s why you play in two leagues. With two leagues comes the possibility of slightly different rosters and rotations, as well as minutes.
Bottom line: we’ll be able to gauge the readiness of who they picked in the Draft and what improvements last year’s players had made. It’s a lot of basketball. Hopefully good basketball.
We may see different coach or coaches, too. Steve Hetzel who handled Summer League last season, is a serious candidate for the head coaching job in New Orleans. We should know more about that this week.
Draft Sleeper of the Week
Despite the fall, Tankathon still ranks the Nets current draft picks at Nos. 6, 33 and 43 the fifth best in the NBA, behind the Memphis Grizzlies, Chicago Bulls, Washington Wizards and Oklahoma City Thunder. We could speculate that there’s no better partner for the Nets in various scenarios than OKC with the 12th, 17th and 37th picks and apron issues, but that’s a discussion for a different day and one unlikely to have much relevance for a month or so.
We’ve written this week about both Darius Acuff and Mikel Brown Jr. who sit at around No. 6 in most mock drafts. So what about Keaton Wagler, the 6’6” Illinois combo guard. In our latest survey of mock drafts, written two days after the Lottery, he finished second to Acuff with three out of 10 sites liking him as a future Net. NBADraft.net wrote this:
Brooklyn continues its long-term rebuild by adding one of the premier upside swings in the class in Wagler, a dynamic scoring guard with outstanding pace, shot-making ability, and offensive creativity. At No. 6, the Nets can afford to prioritize talent and star upside, and Wagler offers the type of offensive centerpiece potential the franchise has lacked in recent years. His ability to operate both on and off the ball gives Brooklyn lineup flexibility moving forward, while his advanced feel and shot-making instincts allow him to impact games.
Of course, there are others who warn that despite his height, his smarts and his maturity, Wagler has issues with his athleticism particularly if you pair him with Egor Demin who while 6’9.5” in shoes and a great volume shooter for his age, is not known for his atheticism.
Troubling to some was this stat…
He hit 36.0” in that vertical leap. Overall, his combine numbers were only okay but as our Collin Helwig noted in his excellent break down among the five lead guard prospects, he was fifth and last in the shuttle run, the three-quarter court sprint and max vertical leap. Among the 70 Combine participants, his worst performance was in the shuttle run, he finished 50th. Surprisingly, he finished last in spot-up shooting (44%) but first among the five in shooting off the dribble (83%) which was the second best overall at the Combine.
Compared to historical numbers, that’s not awful, as Billy Reinhardt pointed out…
But like any prospect, his game is not about his numbers. He is a smart, poised, mature player who has overcome whatever physical deficits he may have. Take this breakdown from Sam Vecenie’s Game Theory.
Wagler has his advocates, chief among them Albert Ghim of No Ceilings. He absolutely loves Wagler:
I believe Keaton Wagler could be a future MVP candidate. I think he’s going to make multiple All-Star teams and All-NBA teams if all breaks right.
His excitement about Wagler is based on his basketball history so far:
The quick synopsis is that he went to public school in Kansas, played AAU for a non-shoe-sponsored program, and wasn’t even a Top 100-ranked prospect coming out of high school. Kansas and Kansas State didn’t even recruit him, even though he played in-state. He committed to Illinois, had a ridiculous freshman season that led the Fighting Illini to the Final Four, and was named a consensus All-American and won the Jerry West Award, just to name a few of his accolades.
Ghim even compares Wagler favorably to Jalen Brunson and Tyrese Haliburton.
Sounds ever so Sean Marks-ey. He met with the Nets in Chicago on Thursday.
Another set of numbers
Stefania Rizzo was a veteran member of the Nets performance staff for years, in charge of rehabilitation therapy among other things. She was also a founder of the NBPTA, the National Basketball Physical Therapists Association, which tries to point up the value of their craft. This week, they looked at what physical theorists look for at the Combine…
While the scouts have their stopwatches out at the NBA Combine, we’re looking at a different set of numbers.
Beyond the vertical jump and the lane agility times, a Physical Therapist’s eye is tuned to the subtle durability markers that often fly under the radar. We aren’t just watching how high an athlete jumps: we’re watching how they land, how they decelerate, and how they manage asymmetrical loads.
Scouting for movement means identifying the biomechanical patterns that translate to a long, healthy career versus those that might signal future risk. It’s about bridging the gap between elite performance and sustainable health.
Whether it’s ankle dorsiflexion during a squat or pelvic control during a change of direction, these details are the foundation of professional success.
The point being that the draft process is more detailed and complex than most fans understand. It all feeds into the team database and their discussions.
Final Note
Jordi Fernandez is still head coach of the Brooklyn Nets.
