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The Long Island Nets finished the G League season with a 17-17 record, just missing the playoffs, but it’s all about development and they did pretty pretty good.
Despite making a late run at the end of the season, Long Island had too much of an uphill battle, and they couldn’t catch the Indiana Mad Ants in the standings and failed to make the G League playoffs. So they ended their season Saturday night at Nassau Coliseum losing 128-93 to the Cleveland Charge ... five of their players in Washington toiling for the big club.
Indeed, Long Island’s elimination led to a purging of the Long Island Nets roster. The big club called back their three two-way players, Reece Beekman, Tosan Evbuomwan, and Tyson Etienne, and signed Drew Timme to a standard two-year deal. They also called up Dariq Whitehead to get more NBA minutes.
That is the point of the NBA G-League: Development. Despite finishing with a 17-17 record in the regular season, Long Island’s pro basketball team had a very productive season when it comes to development ... and had the resumes and accolades to prove it.
Let’s start with the guy who’s currently making the biggest splash in Brooklyn team, Drew Timme. It’s interesting to look back on the season and where Long Island was to start the Tip-Off Tournament. Back then, Long Island was not a good rebounding team, and their big man, Patrick Gardner, wasn’t getting the job done.
Long Island knew a change had to be made and traded for Timme in late December for the start of the regular season. Timme brought some much-needed size and strength to Long Island and led the team in just about every category you could imagine. After being acquired in a three-way deal from the Stockton Kings, he thrived.
Only last week, Timme hit a career-high 50-point game and was named a G-League Player of the Week. He became the fifth Long Island player in history to be named the G-League Player of the Week, and the first this season.
In his first interviews in Brooklyn, Timme shouted out the Long Island coaching staff led by Mfon Udofia.
“The G is not the prettiest thing around,” he told Meghan Triplett of YES Network. “It motivates you to work hard and the staff down there is amazing. They’re great. They know what to do. They know how to get you to where you want to go and they’re on you every day and it might be annoying sometimes but on the whole it was great and those guys really helped me get where I am right now and I’m very appreciative.”
After he came to the Island, Timme averaged 23.9 points, 10.3 rebounds, and 4.2 assists in his 20 games played. He also worked on his three-point percentage a great deal, seeing it jump from 12.5% on one attempt a game in Stockton to to 38.5% on three attempts in Long Island. To make matters more impressive, Timme was the only player in the G-League this year to average a 20-10 double-double.
Dariq Whitehead had quite the redemption arc this year. From a tough Summer League when he was just coming off rehab from his 2024 surgery — his third in 22 months — to some big games on Long Island and Brooklyn, the signature one a 30-point effort back on February 23, when he hit 8-of-12 threes and won the game for Long Island. For the season, Whitehead averaged 12.7 points on 38/34/71 shooting to go along with four boards and two assists. (Whitehead has actually shot better in Brooklyn stints, hitting 43.2% of his threes.)
The big benefit for Whitehead is that he’s finishing up his first full regular season healthy since Montverde Academy back in 2021-22. He told NetsDaily back in February about how he was looking forward to this summer.
“I haven’t had a summer yet since high school where I can be able to work on my body, work on my game, and get stronger,” he told ND after that big G League game in February. “This season leading into this summer is going to be the first one. So, I’m looking forward to taking advantage of it and continuing to stack days.”
He has also admitted that recovering his explosiveness is the next step and the G League helped provide him with the opportunity to play and push that development as well.
Then there’s Killian Hayes who came into the season with a similar story to Whitehead’s , battling injuries and looking for his redemption. He was unceremoniously dumped by Detroit a year ago after having a rough go shooting the ball. In fact, he had finished last in effective shooting percentage his first three years in the NBA. Despite that, the Nets gave him a chance and by the end of his first season in the G League he had become a solid shooter, hitting 37.1% of his threes in Long Island, then 38.1% in his short time with Brooklyn. He had never hit 30% in his three and a half years with Detroit.
In Long Island’s final game in suburban Montreal earlier this month, Hayes looked like a man with something to prove. After the Nets hadn’t extended his first 10-day deal Hayes played with a vengeance, notching a career-high 38 points, which included another personal best of eight three-pointers.
“Putting in the work,” Hayes told ND about how his shot has been developing. “Just being confident at the end of the day. I like how my shot is feeling. I like my chances when I shoot the ball. That’s one of the reasons I started going in, just to have that intent whenever I shoot.”
Hayes fixed his shot in his time on Long Island. He played arguably the best basketball of his career this year, and that’s in large part due to the development of Hayes by head coach, Mfon Udofia. Udofia has a knack of developing some talents like Noah Clowney, Jalen Wilson, and others. It was no different with Hayes.
“It’s part of his development,” said Udofia of Hayes’ shooting improvement. “Of course when you come to the G-League you have things you’d like to work on, and you want to be selfish about. It’s what we’re here for.
“Our coaching staff has been doing a really good job with Killian, he’s been putting the work in each and every day, and you can see it paying off. To see him have success has been great because he puts so much work in and he’s been working really hard.”
It remains to be seen where Hayes goes from here, but he is eligible for a second 10-day and interestingly, on Saturday, he suddenly was NWT — “not with the team” — and Oshae Brissett, the former Celtic, replaced him on the roster. Hayes had been shut down two days before that after he injured his ankle. Hayes told ND that getting to the league is the “ultimate goal.” Hayes was one of Long Island’s best players, and it’s easy to see why. He was a scoring machine who was able to get his teammates involved.
As Timme said, it wasn’t just about numbers with Hayes with whom he shared a great chemistry. “I think we’re all surprised he’s still down here, to be honest, with the way he carries himself and has been playing,” Timme told ND.
Tyson Etienne grew a ton over the Tip-Off Tournament and regular season. Etienne was far from Long Island’s best player in the Tip-Off Tournament but grew a lot, worked on his shot, and wound up being one of Long Island’s signature players, earning himself a two-way deal with Brooklyn.
Kendall Brown might have the same luck if he hadn’t suffered an abductor injury. Another one of Long Island’s better players, had been given a two-way contract but after the injury, Brooklyn cut and he hasn’t played since, despite being on the Long Island bench. (He was the second two-way player with bad luck. Yongxi “Jacky” Cui, the Chinese phenom, who the Nets signed in preseason, tore his ACL in December and was waived.)
Overall, seven Long Island Nets got call-ups throughout the season, a healthy number. It represents almost a third of the call-ups in Long Island’s nine-year history (19).
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With all those call-ups, it was no surprise that Long Island lost their final game of the season on Saturday night in rough fashion, as the Cleveland Charged torched them, 128-93. The only two real positives in Long Island’s game on Saturday came in Mark Armstrong and Jordan Minor.
Armstrong finished with 30 points leading the team, adding two rebounds, six assists, two steals and one block in 44 minutes. The 6’2” 21-year-old was
Villanova’s starting point guard last season but went undrafted.
Minor, who was second on the team in scoring with 25 points. Minor flirted with a double-double picking up nine rebounds. A Virginia product, Minor was signed after participating in a local tryout last fall.
Trevon Scott, the 6’8” 28-year-old PF, also played 40 minutes and scored 12 points.
The game, Long Island’s Fan Appreciation Night, attracted 4,035 fans. The night earlier, on Girl’s Night Out, the team attracted another 2,953. Overall, the season represented a big improvement in attendance for the affiliate. The team attracted more than 7.000 fans four times this season — three as “Les Nets” at Place Bell in Laval, Quebec, and once on Education Night in Long Island.
Despite the uncertainty about Nassau Coliseum — Las Vegas Sands has applied for a casino license at the Coliseum site that would result in its destruction, the Nets say they are not currently seeking to relocate the team.
“The Long Island Nets have no current plans to relocate the team from its home arena, Nassau Coliseum, and remain dedicated to creating an exciting, family-friendly environment for our fans both locally and throughout the region,” BSE Global, the Nets parent company, said in a statement to NetsDaily.
Cleveland dominated the first quarter, shooting 64.0 percent from the field. The Charge closed the first quarter ahead by 21, 41-20. Long Island tried to battle back in the second quarter, but Cleveland outscored the Nets 30-26 in the period. The Charge went into halftime ahead by 25, 71-46.
Long Island continued to put pressure on Cleveland, but its efforts were not enough. The Charge outscored the Nets 30-17 and closed the third quarter ahead by 38, 101-63. Long Island found its groove late in the fourth quarter, but it was too late. Cleveland defeated Long Island by 35, 128-93.
Cleveland two-way Nae’Qwan Tomlin posted a game-high 41 points along with 14 rebounds, four assists, two steals and two blocks in 35 minutes. Charge guard Jules Bernard posted 29 points, five rebounds, three assists and one block in 28 minutes.