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[Brooklyn Nets]

What the Brooklyn Nets can learn from the NBA Playoffs amid a possible Giannis pursuit

Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images

There are many takeaways to be had from an exhilarating postseason so far, including a Jordi Fernández favorite, but one should be of mind when thinking about Giannis Antetokounmpo.

The Brooklyn Nets, amid their preparations for their most consequential NBA Draft since moving across the Hudson River, get to watch the postseason from home for the second year in a row.

We knew this would be the case before their 2024-25 campaign even kicked off, but now, there is a surprising, Greek layer of intrigue. The true question facing Brooklyn and their offseason, aside from where their lottery pick will land on May 12, is if they’re actually serious about this Giannis Antetokounmpo thing.

Antetokounmpo did not seem long for Milwaukee even before 34-year-old Damian Lillard suffered a torn left achilles, all but ensuring yet another first-round loss...

Just in: Milwaukee Bucks star Damian Lillard has been diagnosed with a torn left Achilles tendon, sources tell ESPN. MRI today revealed the severity. A devastating end to his season. pic.twitter.com/ysZ0nw8gxW

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) April 28, 2025​

Lillard’s legendary career deserves many glowing eulogies that will hopefully prove premature, but this is not one of those. Brooklyn, as a rebuilding team that controls all available cap space for the upcoming offseason, is a vulture, here to pick on the remains of the Bucks if it so entices them.

So what should Brooklyn’s early takeaways from the 2025 NBA Playoffs be? And will those takeaways further entice them to go after Antetokounmpo, or will they scare General Manager Sean Marks away from the home run swing?

The Possession Battle​

Let’s start with something Nets Head Coach Jordi Fernández will absolutely love.

Just halfway through one round of this postseason, it’s clear the possession battle is as important as it’s ever been in the NBA. By my casual calculations, through 30 playoff games, teams that win the possession battle* are a whopping 22-5, with three ties.

*If you had three more offensive rebounds than your opponent, that counted as three more possessions. But if you turned it over three more times than your opponent, you were back to neutral.

Fernández, as most coaches do, harped on the value of winning extra possessions all season long. But don’t take it from him, take it from old friend Kenny Atkinson and his thoughts on the Nets prior to a February matchup.

“They are aggressive. And it’s translated to, they’re turning teams over like crazy. And then the flip side of that offensively, like a lot of young teams, they attack the offensive boards. So they’re going for the possession game, full out, and it’s translating to wins. So, really a ton of credit to Jordi and the players over in that locker room. Really, really impressive ... just real credit to him.”

The 3-point revolution and subsequent “pace-and-space” era taught NBA teams how to maximize possessions. Corner threes, layups, avoiding middies early in the shot-clock or after attacking closeouts, you know the drill. Teams went small, acquiring players who could thus maximize possessions and cover space to prevent the opponent from doing so.

Now that teams are clear on how to maximize possessions, the natural next step was and is to create more of them. Oklahoma City committed the fewest turnovers while forcing the most, and boom, they’re 72-14 including the playoffs.

Take Tyrese Haliburton, who is the most overrated player in the NBA if you listen to the rest of the league. I get it: His opponents see the max contract, the All-NBA nod, and none of the bag work to go with it. Haliburton does not cook many defenders in isolation, and he’s easier to stay in front of than some of his contemporaries; you rarely see a highlight dunk or a defender on the floor.

But it’s a ridiculous take because Haliburton’s ability to handle the ball constantly while committing so few turnovers gives Indiana’s offense such a high floor. If an advantage isn’t there, he doesn’t force the issue, and yet, he's able to fire the ball across the court, putting his teammates in great spots...

HOW?!

this Tyrese Haliburton pass is incredible. pic.twitter.com/dvz3DW8xCR

— Indiana Pacers (@Pacers) December 7, 2023​

Though Haliburton is rocking just 41/29/75 shooting splits, he’s also carrying Indiana to a monster 120 offensive rating on a 32% usage rate against a decent Milwaukee defense that finished 12th in the NBA this season.

Perhaps all this makes Brooklyn more inclined to give Day’Ron more than the $10 million annual value that’s been linked to his game. In analyzing his season, we noted that offensive rebounding is a much more valuable skill in 2025 than it was at the start of Sharpe’s career.

Maybe Keon Johnson’s 2025-26 salary becomes guaranteed thanks to his ability to force turnovers, or Trendon Watford dons a different uniform because he can’t avoid them as a ball-handler. Just maybe, Brooklyn regards Cam Thomas’ offensive profile more warmly than we might think, highly valuing his ability to avoid turnovers even if he does so by taking tough shots.

The Weak Link Era​

Owen Phillips, whose Substack The F5 is a fantastic resource for nerdy NBA fans, recently wrote here about the NBA becoming a “weak link” sport, and I’ve plucked some relevant passages:

A strong link sport is one where the team with the best playerusually wins. In basketball terms, that means if you’ve got Michael Jordan or LeBron James on your team, you usually win. That’s different from soccer, which the authors classified as a weak link sport. In weak link sports, the team without the worst player usually wins.

He ultimately that the NBA has become a weak link sport in the past decade or so, and that this really shows up in the postseason:

In the postseason, poor defenders are mercilessly hunted on one end while reluctant shooters are blatantly ignored on the other end. It doesn’t matter how good a team’s best player is if their worst player is consistently forcing them to defend or attack 4-on-5. A team’s worst player can all but cancel out the impact of its best player.

Modern defensive schemes require five defenders to be on the same page, rotating on a string and covering for each others mistakes at a moment’s notice. One weak link in the chain renders all the previous defensive rotations null. It doesn’t matter how good of a one-on-one scorer they are on offense if they look like food to opposing ball-handlers when they’re on defense.

After a week of the 2025 NBA Playoffs, it’s hard to disagree with Phillips.

Kris Dunn has pulled off outrageous feats on defense through four games of Nuggets-Clippers — which I’m covering in a freelance capacity. L.A.’s chances of covering the pivotal two-man game between Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray rely on Dunn, and the former Providence star is finally seeing well-earned praise for his defense...

Kris Dunn is the best defensive guard in the NBA, and it's not close. Here's why: pic.twitter.com/tRk3g1Gk1X

— Nate Duncan (@NateDuncanNBA) April 22, 2025​

And yet, with the money on the table in Game 4, he played just 21 minutes while not-so-coincidentally posting a game-worst plus-minus.

Denver’s defensive increasingly revolved around how to most flagrantly disrespect Dunn, and it worked. They were able to trap the Harden-Zubac pick-and-roll, and with Dunn’s defender, meet Zubac incredibly early on the catch, sometimes above the free-throw line. Oh, and when they doubled Kawhi Leonard, you can guess where it came from.

Or, take Minnesota’s thrilling Game 4 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers, where weak links compounded.

Late in the game, L.A.’s offense exclusively featured Luka Dončić looking for the weakest on-ball defender on the floor, and only finding Naz Reid or Julius Randle. Not a bad deal for Minnesota, two big, capable bodies that forced Dončić into tough shots and limited how much their teammates had to help. Their “weak links” were frequently targeted, but held up wonderfully.

So, why didn’t LeBron James touch the ball more, if Dončić attacking switches led to just 19 Laker points in the fourth?

Well, the 40-year-old was totally gassed from a tremendous defensive performance...

In last night's game, LeBron had one of the better defensive performance of his playoff career, which is saying A LOT:

- 3 steals, 3 blocks, 2 fouls
- 9 def. rebounds, 2 deferred, 1 boxout
- 2/7 allowed at the rim
- 3/11 allowed on 2P shots
- 1.4 miles run defensively pic.twitter.com/2Y4x6Ykp5H

— moose / lebron is 1st-team (@roadto80pct) April 28, 2025​

...in which he saved a Lakers team that, thanks to Jaxson Hayes’ four uninspiring minutes, needed to play the same five guys the entire second half. Those five guards and wings switched everything, but their weak links were worse than Minnesota’s.

Reaves was meh, Dončić was terrible, and James constantly had to play Superman at the rim, which was all fine and well, but Los Angeles really missed his offense on the other end. In sum, Minnesota would not have won that game without an Anthony Edwards explosion, but their supposed weak links being pretty damn strong saved them too.

The Giannis Question​

Back to the top.

Giannis Antetokounmpo is averaging a stupid 34/14/5 through the first four games of his ninth postseason. Under a preposterous offensive burden, his defense has slipped a tad, but the passing is definitely better than you think. And yet, I don’t see how the Brooklyn Nets build a championship-roster around the unquestioned superstar if they trade for him this summer.

There is the obvious timeline question, with Antetokounmpo set to turn 31 at the beginning of next season, while the only current Brooklyn Net whom we know definitively can start on a great playoff team is Cam Johnson.

In this weak link era, it may be a near-impossibility for Sean Marks to field nine playoff-worthy dudes in the next couple seasons.

Firstly, Brooklyn would have to limit the draft compensation Milwaukee would inevitably ask for spades of. Perhaps the Nets get to keep two first-rounders this season, and draft, say, VJ Edgecombe with the early pick and Ryan Kalkbrenner with a later one. Maybe that’s 30 minutes of solid wing play and a viable backup big.

Marks could then hit a homer the old-fashioned way, by using his cap space in free agency. Is Nickeil Alexander-Walker a strong starter hiding in plain sight? Is Santi Aldama or Jonathan Kuminga something more? Perhaps Myles Turner is signed as a perfect floor-spacer next to Giannis, while the Claxton is traded for a couple lower-end rotation guys.

I’m loosely spitballing here, and it’s completely unsourced, to be clear. But any way you draw it up, the Nets would have to create an entirely new team around Antetokounmpo to even avoid the Play-In Tournament in a weak Eastern Conference.

As Marks said in his exit interview: “If you’re going after max-level talent, they have to automatically and absolutely change the trajectory of your team. This can’t be like let’s go get this [guy] and lock ourselves into being a 6-7 seed. When we go all-in, you’re going in to compete at the highest level and contend.”

In 2025, Antetokounmpo is the highest level of player alive. But if his Milwaukee Bucks and these NBA Playoffs have taught us anything, that’s not enough by itself to bring a team to the highest level.

That is the lesson the Brooklyn Nets should learn form these playoffs.

Source: https://www.netsdaily.com/2025/4/28...-nba-playoffs-amid-a-possible-giannis-pursuit

 

[Brooklyn Nets]

Summer of Our Lives: In search of an offensive style ... any offensive style

Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images

What do the Brooklyn Nets need as they head into what Jordi Fernandez calls their “Summer of Our Lives?” How about an offensive? ANY offense.

The six worst teams in the NBA this season had one thing in common: all scored less than 112 points per 100 possessions. (The only team in that range to make the playoffs was the Magic, thanks to their second-best defense.) Your Brooklyn Nets had the third worst offense in the league, scoring just 108.1 points per 100 possessions. It’s safe to say that their quest for “sustainable success” will have to begin with figuring out how to score.

The only near-absolute requirement for a good offense is good shooting. Across the league, teams’ offensive efficiency was very strongly related to their true-shooting percentage, a weighted combination of FG%, 3P%, and FT%. The NBA’s best offenses—the Cavs, Celtics, Thunder, and Nuggets—were all excellent shooting teams, while the laggards—the Wizards, Hornets, Nets, and Magic—had the four lowest true-shooting percentages in the league.

Alas, the Nets’ prospects going forward are even worse than they appear here because three of their five above-average shooters—Dorian Finney-Smith, Dennis Schroder, and Shake Milton—were traded during the season. The team’s TS% cratered once they left, from a league-average 57.7 before the trades to a woeful 53.7 after. The only proven shooter returning (maybe?) next season is Cam Johnson, whose 63.2 TS% was more than five points above league average. (Dariq Whitehead was only slightly above league average, and he played just 20 games.)

It would be comforting to assume that the Nets’ terrible shooting will automatically improve with better point guard play, but that’s not necessarily the case. Trae Young and Cade Cunningham were All-Star point guards and among the league’s leaders in assists this season, but their teams were just average shooting teams. The Warriors had the NBA’s highest percentage of shots assisted—and the greatest shooter in NBA history—yet they ranked 21st in true-shooting. On the other hand, the Bucks were one of the hottest-shooting teams in the league despite ranking just 22nd in assists per 100 possessions and 23rd in assist percentage.

The only team in the league to score substantially more than their mediocre shooting would have predicted was the Houston Rockets. They were the most determined practitioners of a very different offensive style, heavily reliant on physical, opportunistic play. The Rockets led the league in offensive rebound percentage (36.3; the league average was 29.3) and in the share of their points coming from putbacks (15.8; the league average was 12.4). Points in the paint, fast break points, and points off turnovers were additional hallmarks of this style, and the Rockets were above average in all three.

The antithesis of Houston’s physical offensive style was Boston’s remarkable 3-point barrage. The Celtics took almost 54% of their field goal attempts from beyond the arc. (The next highest percentage in the league was Golden State’s, almost seven points lower.) The Celtics were not an especially efficient 3-point-shooting team, less than 1% above league average, but they made it up on volume, producing the second-most-potent offense in the NBA.

The Celtics success might seem to suggest that hoisting threes is the most efficient way to score in the modern NBA; but the reality is more complex. Across the league, there is no relationship at all between three-point attempt rates and offensive ratings. Arraying teams by offensive styles, from the 3-point-heavy Celtics on the far left to the physical, opportunistic Rockets on the far right, begins to show why not.

Four of the league’s top six offenses fell closer to the Rockets’ style than to the Celtics’. The Nuggets took the fewest threes in the league (less than 35% of their shots), but they led the league in points in the paint and fast break points (48% and 17% of their scoring, respectively). They also ranked fourth in the percentage of their field goals that were assisted, thanks to all-world point-center Nikola Jokic.

The Nuggets’ offensive recipe is probably not one that can be replicated. However, the Grizzlies—the NBA’s original “Grit ’n’ Grind” team—provide another example of a successful offense built less around 3-point shooting than around scoring in the paint, offensive rebounds, and putbacks. The Knicks had similar success by scoring inside and limiting fouls and turnovers.

The best offensive team in the NBA, the Cavs, fell near the middle of the distribution of offensive styles. Their 3-point attempt rate (almost 46%) was fifth in the league, and they were second best in 3-point accuracy (bested only by the Bucks). But they were also above average, or only slightly below average, in offensive rebounds, steals, points off turnovers, and points in the paint. They played both of the league’s two primary offensive styles effectively.

Conversely, the worst offenses in the league tended to fall in the middle of the distribution because they did nothing well. The Nets, for example, were third in the league in 3-point attempts despite establishing a new franchise high, but 25th in 3-point accuracy. They weren’t very physical or opportunistic, either. They committed the most fouls in the league, but were below average in scoring in the paint and just about average in offensive rebounding, second-chance points, and fast break points.

It is hard to make even an educated guess about what the Nets’ offense might look like going forward. That will depend on who they manage to add through the draft, trades, and free agency in the next 15 months—and who they lose.

If Cam Thomas continues to lead the team in usage, can he score more efficiently? Thomas improved his shot selection this season, reducing his mid-range shots from 30% to 25% and increasing his 3-point attempts from 33% to 43%; but his true-shooting percentage was still just average, 57.5%.

What about Cam Johnson? If he remains with the team, can he replicate this season’s hot shooting (true-shooting almost three percent above his career rate)?

The Net whose job may be most secure at the moment is coach Jordi Fernandez. Does he have a preferred offensive style? He has talked about relying on analytics and “challenging” his players to shoot more threes, but has also preached “physicality” and “Brooklyn grit.” Perhaps he, too, would be happy with a team that has any offensive style at all.

Source: https://www.netsdaily.com/2025/4/29...rch-of-an-offensive-style-any-offensive-style

 

[Brooklyn Nets]

Opportunity abounds for New York Liberty role players in title defense

New York’s depth is less solidified than last season, but it is by no means less important. Who will step up?

“We know this year might be harder than last year. But we’re ready to [face] that challenge.”

How a repeat championship could be any harder for the New York Liberty than the first in their 28-year existence, which required a bloody five-game triumph over the Minnesota Lynx in the WNBA Finals last season, is probably not something the franchise wants to find out. But if anybody is qualified or hungry enough to tackle an even bigger beast, it’s Rebekah Gardner.

Gardner, who the Liberty acuqired last March, spent the 2024 campaign cheering from the training table. General Manager Jonathan Kolb gave up two future second-rounders to get her, a booming statement of belief in a near-34-year-old just beginning rehab on a torn right achilles tendon.

“She has shown tremendous perseverance throughout her career, and in tandem with our talented performance staff, we are confident she will be positioned to have the best opportunity at a full recovery as we target the 2025 season for her return,” said Kolb at the time.

As for Gardner, she called the rehab process “the hardest the thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

Well, 2025 is here, and she is not just a feel-good story poised to smile in the background of champagne-soaked photos in October this time. With Betnijah Laney-Hamilton likely out for the season, Kayla Thornton now living across the country, and some key contributors set to compete in June’s EuroBasket, Gardner has a chance to play real minutes during the title defense.

“Now I get to contribute,” said the 6’1” guard. “I think that just by watching last year, it gave me time to think about how I will be able to do that.”

Unsurprisingly, the vet has a pretty good grasp on her upcoming role: “First of all, we have a lot of great passers and shooters, and I feel like I can create to find them, and then also defensively, I feel like that’s something that comes pretty easy to me ... so every time I step on the floor, that’s my number one thing. Just to be disruptive and to create more possessions for the team.”

Garnder does sport a per-game average of 1.9 stocks (steals + blocks) along with 38.3% 3-point shooting in just 21 minutes a night. Surrounding Sabrina Ionescu, Breanna Stewart, and Jonquel Jones with that type of production is just what the Liberty need.

Newcomer Natasha Cloud and rising star Leonie Fiebich will start next to the big three, and while those two will certainly face challenges in new roles, bench minutes behind them are up for grabs.

Unlike Gardner, Nyara Sabally doesn’t have anything to prove to Liberty coaches and fans, not after her epic performance in Game 5 of the Finals last season...

Third quarter:
Minnesota Lynx 10, Nyara Sabally 9 pic.twitter.com/mCYwq9zcAR

— Lucas Kaplan (@LucasKaplan_) October 21, 2024​

After winning a title this spring in the Turkish League, Sabally just arrived in New York and is ramping up her participation in training camp after getting some much needed rest. She’ll likely start the season as New York’s sixth woman, a role Head Coach Sandy Brondello is confident she can contribute in if she just stays healthy.

“She feels good, and we’re excited to have her and continue to build her, because we think the sky is the limit for her.”

Elsewhere, fan-favorite Marine Johannès is back after a year away from the Liberty due to other overseas commitments, and the gym is buzzing about The Magician’s return, Brondello leading the charge.

“I think she’s a better player than what we saw two years ago as well. So, so excited about that, and how she adds another level to what we want to do.”

She’s baaaack! Marine Johannès’ first day of training camp! pic.twitter.com/RMQrxlyUo9

— Jackie Powell (she/her) (@ClassicJpow) April 29, 2025​

As in 2023, Johannès is likely the first guard off the bench for New York, and the early season will be spent figuring out who her best backcourt partner is. She and Cloud could complement each other’s strengths tremendously, given Cloud’s defensive reputation, while her and Gardner could do the same if Brondello prefers to keep Ionescu and Cloud joined at the hip.

It is also worth noting that the Ionescu-Johannès pairing had a +7.3 net rating in 2023, per PBP Stats, though the small sample size and poor opponent 3-point makes it a bit mucky.

Yet, Kennedy Burke could easily wind up being the most important reserve the New York Liberty have this year. Burke played in 38 regular-season games last year averaging just 12 ticks a night, but missed training camp and subsequently dealt with knee pain for much of the season.

By her own admission, 2025 is already off to a much different start...

Kennedy Burke on having a "brand new knee" and having a much stronger start to training camp: pic.twitter.com/uHoKYulZ3S

— Lucas Kaplan (@LucasKaplan_) April 28, 2025​

Burke shot just 26% from three on limited volume last season, but if she can find a way to make herself offensively viable next to the Stewie/Jones front-court, New York can replicate the success they had last season with jumbo, switch-heavy lineups featuring Fiebich and Laney-Hamilton.

In this case Burke would be filling Laney-Hamilton’s spot, and while she’s unable to do much of what the former All-Star can, some improved 3-point shooting and continued dribble-drives/cutting could make her yet another switchy option for Brondello.

“I’m excited about KB,” said the head coach. “Look, she feels way more comfortable, and you see she’s so explosive on those first steps, it’s been pretty impressive for us. She’s improved her 3-point shooting. Look, I think year two on a team like this is easier than year one. She had to learn the whole system, and last year, she didn’t do a training camp, so she’s already ahead. You see how [much] more comfortable she is. She knows where she can pick her pockets, she’s versatile, so we’re going to lean into that and excited. You know, I think she’ll learn some good minutes.”

While Gardner, Sabally, Johannès, and Burke will likely get the bulk of reserve minutes for the Liberty, you can never have too much depth, particularly with EuroBasket this season (for which Fiebich, Sabally, and Johannès will likely depart).

Marquesha Davis and Jaylyn Sherrod are two sophomore guards looking for a leap, and Isabelle Harrison joins New York with seven seasons of WNBA experience already in her bag.

New York’s first chance to test out their depth in live-game action will come in their first preseason game on May 9, when they host the Connecticut Sun at Barclays Center. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. ET.

• Marine Johannès arrives for first Liberty preseason - Madeline Kenney - New York Post
• Healthy Nyara Sabally out to finally fulfill potential as vital piece of Liberty title defense - Madeline Kenney - New York Post

Source: https://www.netsdaily.com/2025/4/29...ew-york-liberty-role-players-in-title-defense

 

[Brooklyn Nets]

Summer of Our Lives: The ‘GreekSeek’ is on!

Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images

Giannis Antetokounmpo is headed to whatever summer spot he enjoys. The big question is not which tropical resort he’ll visit but which training camp he’ll be at in October.

In the grand tradition of the “MeloDrama,” “Dwightmare,” and “Clean Sweep,” the “GreekSeek” is lit!

The Milwaukee Bucks exited the first round of the NBA playoffs Tuesday night for the third straight year despite Giannis Antetokounmpo’s heroic efforts and now with his desire for another championship in Brew City unfulfilled, the belief is that he is headed elsewhere. Last night in talking to the media, the 6’11” Greek Freak made it clear that it’s too early to talk about his future.

“I’m not going to do this. I’m not going to do this,” Antetokounmpo said when asked if he thought he could still win another chip in Milwaukee. “I know ... whatever I say, I know how it’s going to translate. I don’t know, man. I wish I was still playing. I wish I was still competing and going back to Milwaukee. I don’t know.”

That answer — “I don’t know” — was enough to set fans tongues a-wagging and trade machines a-whirring across the NBA. It’s obviously not a surprise that the 31-year-old two-time MVP and one-time Finals MVP would consider departing.

As Brian Lewis wrote after the Bucks lost to the Indiana Pacers, the small market club is in desperate straits.

A combination of age and injuries has undone the Bucks. They’re in the worst of spots — sliding into mediocrity with no escape route.

They don’t control any of their own first-round picks until 2031, and only have one second-rounder over the next six years. Worse, they’re old and capped out.

Pat Connaughton and Bobby Portis have player options for a combined $22.9 million. Add Antetokounmpo ($54.1 million), Lillard ($54.1 million) and Kyle Kuzma ($22.4 million), and the Bucks are within a hair of the salary cap. And that’s before considering free agent Brook Lopez, 37.

And Damian Lillard’s torn Achilles tendon has cast a pall on next season as well.

Moreover, Milwaukee is not New York, L.A., Miami or its neighbor to the south, Chicago. The Bucks play in the 25th out of the NBA’s 28 markets. Only Oklahoma City, New Orleans and Memphis are smaller. They have new owners as well, Jimmy and Dee Haslam, whose stewardship of the Cleveland Browns hasn’t been filled with parades.

Ever hear the phrase, “no way out?” Antetokounmpo deserves some of the blame for the team’s demise just as he did for the team’s championship three years ago. The win now strategy clearly failed.

For Brooklyn Nets fans, of course, Antetokounmpo is someone they’re heard mentioned as the franchise’s “Plan A” since their last set of superstars left for Philadelphia, Dallas and Phoenix.

Sean Marks seemed to more than hint about it when in his end-of-season media availability he said this about what it would take for the franchise to move from the organic to the opportunistic.

“If you’re going after max-level talent, they have to automatically and absolutely change the trajectory of your team. This can’t be like let’s go get this [guy] and lock ourselves into being a 6-7 seed. When we go all-in, you’re going in to compete at the highest level and contend.” [Emphasis ours.]

He couldn’t mention specifics unless he wanted to field an angry phone call from Adam Silver that would lighten his wallet and/or trigger a tampering investigation. But there does not appear anyone on the horizon, either a free agent or a player wanting out of his current circumstances that fits that description like Antetokounmpo. (Of course, there’s always the possibility that Marks is offering a feint in the game within the game that is the NBA.)

So, yes, the Nets will have to be considered one of the top petitioners for Antetokounmpo’s services. NO team has the combination of draft picks — 31 total, 29 tradeable — cap space — starting at a bare minimum of $45 million — market and money that Marks and Joe Tsai have husbanded. It’s a haul.

“I think we need to be opportunistic,” Marks said when discussing the upcoming free agent period in that same media availability. “In this market we’re always going to have various different free agents and opportunities thrown at us. Just simply being in a top five market in the league, that’s going to happen.”

Then he added, “We don’t want to get sped up. We’ve talked multiple times about being systematic and strategic in how we build here. We know we have 15 first round picks in the next six, seven years; so there’s a lot of draft assets at stake. There’s a lot of cap room at stake, and how we use that, it’s probably too early to determine.”

To get one of the league’s best players — you make your own list but Antetokounmpo isn’t falling below five, the Nets would have to revert to the same strategy that got them Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden. Remember them?

However, the Nets would have to be considered one of the main suitors, at least at this point, on Day One of the Greek Seek.

John Hollinger of The Athletic in his discussion of the Bucks situation (everyone seemed to have Bucks obituaries ready for Milwaukee’s last breath this morning) listed two teams as the primary possibilities, the Houston Rockets and the Brooklyn Nets.

Of the Rockets and Nets (whose prep work he praised.) Hollinger wrote:

The most obvious candidate is Houston. The Rockets can offer an electrifying mini-Giannis in Amen Thompson, salivating draft picks in the form of a 2025 lottery pick from the Suns, unprotected Phoenix firsts in 2027 and 2029 (the latter of which is the better of Phoenix’s or Dallas’) and enough salary-matching flotsam to offset Antetokounmpo’s incoming $54.6 million and get a deal to the finish line.

Brooklyn is the other candidate, with enough cap room to swallow other Milwaukee contracts (maybe not Lillard’s, but could the Nets take Connaughton and Kuzma?). The Nets can’t put a talent like Thompson in a trade, but they have four firsts in 2025 (likely pick Nos. 6, 19, 26 and 27), an unprotected Suns swap in 2028, three unprotected future firsts from the Knicks and all of their own future draft picks available in a trade. The combined cap relief and draft capital is a pretty rare package, especially with the Bucks’ recent tax issues.

Similarly, Tim MacMahon of ESPN notes that the Rockets, who are down 3-1 to the Warriors entering Game 5 in Houston, could switch from their own homegrown mantra to adding a superstar, using all those assets they have acquired from the Nets either in the original James Harden deal back in 2021 or last November’s swap of picks.

Those are the assets that would allow the Rockets to engage in any superstar trade discussions this summer — if that’s a path Houston opts to take. That’s far from a certainty, regardless of the Rockets’ playoff results.

“Even though it can be exciting to feel like you are as close as you may be, it’s important to move with the same level of patience that got us to where we are and to make sure that we’re always making decisions based on not just today, but the future,” Patrick Fertitta said. “Because we never want to value the near term over the long term. If the right opportunity presents itself where we feel like we can get materially better, we’re always going to do the work to know if it’s the right thing to do.

“But in a perfect world, we’d love to see this group grow up together...”

Sound familiar?

There’s also the possibility, as remote as it seems, that Giannis Antetokounmpo, who is ingrained in the Milwaukee civic as well as sports culture will want to stay the course.

“There’s a lot of times that life has made me sad or frustrated since I was a kid. I never gave up,” Antetokounmpo said Tuesday. “You know, I always try to find solutions in my life. I think it translates to the basketball court. I always try to, even though things might not happen the way I want it to happen. I always have class, and I have this optimistic mentality of coming back, keep on working. And there’s going to be a day that’s it going to be your turn.”

As Tim Reynolds of AP wrote Wednesday, nothing about this scenario will be easy.

Moving someone with two years and $113 million left on his contract — not to mention a player option that could extend it by another year and tack $63 million more onto the bill — will be difficult. And players don’t always get traded where they want to go; the obvious case in point there is when Lillard wanted to be traded by Portland to Miami and wound up in Milwaukee instead.

…Or certain as ESPN’s Brian Windhorst said Wednesday.

“There has been no chatter whatsoever about what Giannis is thinking about with his future, no back room dealings or rumors about does he want to go some place else,” said Windhorst. “There’s a lot of uncertainty. He is gonna control how those talks go, that’s the reality in 2025.”

Indeed, as repeatedly noted, we are just waking up to Day One of said GreekSeek and that back-and-forths, the rumors, the disinformation and misdirection will be rife particularly between the Draft Lottery, now 12 days away, and the NBA Draft on June 25-26. The oddsmakers currently see Brooklyn as the likely landing spot for Giannis. Bright Lights, Big City. But it was the same oddsmakers who bet the Nets wouldn’t win more than 19 games. Stay tuned.

Source: https://www.netsdaily.com/2025/4/30/24420969/summer-of-our-lives-the-greekseek-is-on

 

[Brooklyn Nets]

Cam Johnson and Steve Nash speak on ‘Young Man and the Three’ Podcast

Daniel Kucin Jr.-Imagn Images

Brooklyn’s highly coveted sharpshooter made one of his first public appearances of the offseason last week beside Steve Nash. Remember that guy?

A current (for now) and old Brooklyn Net spent some time last week chopping it up on The Young Man and The Three podcast, formerly known as the The Old Man and the Three w/ JJ Redick.

Cam Johnson, now a month and three days removed from NBA action, joined Steve Nash, who’s almost three years removed from his ambivalent tenure as head coach of the Brooklyn Nets. It was Johnson’s fourth appearance on the show. Nash is a bit newer to the mic, but seems to have found a taste for it, having recently stepped up to fill Redick’s role in the Mind the Game podcast with LeBron James. Redick, becoming a different kind of a teammate to James, had to leave the show for obvious reasons last summer.

While Johnson and Nash touched on things like the media’s evolution, the short-lived competition between Nikola Jokić and Jusuf Nurkić, and even the interior decor of Johnson’s Scottsdale apartment, much of the conversation centered around the NBA playoffs.

About a third of the way into the episode, Johnson asked Nash about the unique dual perspective he has having both coached and played point guard in the NBA playoffs. Nash assumedly referenced his time as a player development consultant with the Golden State Warriors. When answering, he mentioned Nick Nurse’s Toronto Raptors at one point. He never faced Nurse or the Raps in the postseason with Brooklyn but did in the 2019 NBA Finals.

“Some teams are just able to read and react,” said Nash. “Like, you think of Nick Nurse’s Raptors, like defensively, it was chaotic. They were in the gaps, flying people off the line, but they were so good at reading.”

Whether you’re a real hoop head or just still trying to wrap your around the 2021 Milwaukee Bucks series, you probably had hoped for Nash to lean into his most notable series as a head coach. Nonetheless, he did ultimately provide some general intel which seemed linked to Brooklyn, at least gently, specifically the 2021-22 team which the Boston Celtics swept out of the postseason.

“We always talk about adjustments, but a lot of adjustments don’t work,” Nash said. “Just because you make an adjustment doesn’t mean it works, right? So I think there’s a, ‘Let’s be ourselves. Let’s be ourselves better.’ And then there’s sometimes a blank, ‘Okay, we got to change — and what is my team capable of changing?’ Sometimes that’s between games, but sometimes that’s in game.”

“So as a player and a coach, there’s this kind of dichotomy or pendulum between ‘We have to be really good at what we do,’ and how many adjustments is our team capable of making effectively, and what happens when they don’t work?... At the end of a lot of series, we have a game or two, we try to play our game plan better, someone blinks, an adjustment could work, the other team adjusts back, all the adjustments are made, and then it becomes a dogfight. Who wants it more? Who’s more physical? Who’s not going to take plays off? Who’s able to stay focused? Who’s able to be efficient? It comes back to almost like we’re just playing in the park.”

That we were, now almost exactly four years ago. Don’t actually watch this unless you want your whole evening ruined.

“I can guarantee you, every NBA coach has things they’d like to do and say, ‘I can’t do that because we’re not capable, or player X can’t do it, or player X won’t do it, right?’,” Nash later said. “So the media’s like, why don’t they blitz? Every NBA staff has literally thought about the whole thing and when they’re not doing something, they’re usually, 99% of the time, a really good reason.”

The Nets sure had their fair share of personnel limitations during that second playoff run with Nash at the helm. But beyond that, your guess is as good as mine in trying to attribute that bit about potential players refusing to make adjustments to anyone on the Nets from 2020-2022.

Doing so isn’t a very productive exercise right now. We don’t even know if Nash was still touching on his own playoff coaching experience by that point. But hey, what else is there to do before May 12th?

Not long after, Johnson jumped in. He instead directly cited his playoff experience in Brooklyn, if you can even call those forgettable four games vs Philly in 2023 that.

“I had a series in Brooklyn against Embiid that’s a very similar type of situation,” he said. “It’s like, there’s so much you can do, and we went full tilt into hitting the entire game, trapping the entire game. But the result is, [Tyrese] Maxey’s teeing off 12 wide open threes a game. So the adjustment there becomes, in what scenarios do we blitz, are we blitzing at the top of the key, are we getting them on the elbows, only when he breaks the 3-point line?”

Outside of a shoutout to Dennis Schröder for being a teammate “always going to have your back,” the conversation’s already loose ties to the Nets were essentially severed after that point, as Nash and Johnson went on to discuss each ongoing playoff series.

While Brooklyn indeed wasn’t the main thing discussed by Johnson and Nash (understandably, might I add), this shared dialogue between two rather consequential Nets, forever tied to the team’s lore — but never overlapped — was mesmerizing, to say the least. Frankly, just the shot of them sitting together was too.

And if you want a real blast from the past, check out this episode I happened to stumble across on Young Man’s channel page. Who better to talk about the future of the Brooklyn Nets than Blake Griffin in 2021, right? Oh Blake, if only you knew what would soon befall you. If only we all did.

Source: https://www.netsdaily.com/2025/5/1/...nash-speak-on-young-man-and-the-three-podcast

 

[Brooklyn Nets]

Elephants and Emus: New York Liberty and Liberty Mutual team up

Ellie the Elephant x Liberty Mutual | New York Liberty

The New York Liberty have partnered with a new sponsor, and it’s one that has a familiar ring to it.

Once you hear it, you can’t unhear it! Liberty Mutual has been a staple as far back as I can remember, and now they’re coming even closer to home.

On May 1, the New York Liberty and Liberty Mutual Insurance announced a brand new, multiyear partnership. The partnership will feature:

• social media content
• a Liberty Mutual patch in the abdomen section of the Liberty’s jerseys
• Liberty mutual branding at Barclays Center on the court and the team’s seatbacks and kickplates
• Celebrity row at Barclays will be renamed Ce-Liberty Row.

There will also be in-arena entertainment at Barclays Center, which means we are in store for collaborations between Ellie the Elephant and Limu Emu (and Doug)! The team released a video highlighting the new partnership

Financial terms of the arrangement were not released, but Sportico, the sports business site called it “one of the biggest partnerships in the team’s history.” A recent multi-year deal between the Phoenix Mercury and venture capital firm Cleveland Avenue was reportedly worth $3 million per WNBA season.

“At Liberty Mutual, our purpose is to help people embrace today and confidently pursue tomorrow,” Jenna Lebel, Liberty Mutual Insurance’s Chief Marketing Officer for US Retail Markets told NetsDaily. “The New York Liberty share this vision through their dedication to excellence, empowerment, and community engagement. They embody resilience and determination, empowering athletes and fans alike to live life to the fullest and create a vibrant community of champions.”

New York Liberty
Ellie the Elephant

Liberty Mutual and the Liberty have made community work big parts of their mission, both sides noted in their releases announcing the partnership. The two Liberty’s invest time and resources on meaningful work to improve the environments they work in and lift up those around them. In a world where things are becoming more fraught and challenging, organizations and institutions that answer the call and step up for the community are more important than ever.

“When you have two brands that have the same thoughtfulness and desire to be part of the community,” Catherine Carlson, Executive Vice President of Global Partnerships for BSE Global told NetsDaily, “I think that really means it’s going to be a great synergy. We’ll provide Liberty Mutual with various opportunities throughout the year, and we’ll continue to evolve and work on that. When you have two brands that have such similar, like-minded thoughts around the community,

“I think there’s just so many things we can do together, and we’re only scratching the surface by starting this partnership. The Liberty is so engaged in the community [and] in so many different ways. We want to engage with partners that want to do the same, so we’re really excited about this partnership.”

Carlson told Sportico that the WNBA team had initially approached the insurance company, that the Liberty had always wanted to build a relationship with the similarly named Liberty Mutual. Indeed, she said that Liberty Mutual executives were in the New York Liberty executive suite when the team won the championship in October.

Keep building​

Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images

Everything has been trending upwards for the Liberty in recent years. The team has steadily improved since Joe and Clara Wu Tsai purchased the team in January 2019 and they finished the story with their first WNBA championship last fall. From the players to the fans, the work being done by the Liberty organization has their fans and the city excited for what’s coming next.

“We had so many people come to our games and and it was a real event,” Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello told the media at practice on April 28. “Everyone’s talking about it. How do we level up on that? What kind of sponsors are they connecting to that align with how we wanna be seen? What’s the legacy we want to leave when we look back in 20 years?”

As Natasha Cloud recently noted, the Liberty were one of the first WNBA teams to really push for more investments and providing players with the first class supports that they deserve. On the organizational side, their success has paid off in numerous ways. Per Carlson, they have seen a 64% increase in attendance year-over-year, an 80% year-over-year increase in corporate partners, and have secured an additional 25 new corporate partners. Success begets success, and when you provide ample amounts of joy and fun, it makes everybody want to join what you’re doing.

Carlson said a big part of that success has been driven by Ellie the Elephant, the team’s organic and omnipresent mascot. The connection with LiMu Emu was as natural a fit as the organization’s similar names.

“Ellie became a sensation,” she added. “People know Libeerty Mutual for Dough and LiMu. so bringing the two together is actually fun. I think people will get a kick out of it.”

“As the WNBA continues to grow,” Lebel said, “we are thrilled to be part of this momentum and to connect with fans who share our values of community and empowerment.”

New York Liberty
Sabrina Ionescu jersey with Liberty Mutual Insurance logo.

It’s an exciting time for the New York Liberty. The team is feeling confident as they prepare for their championship defense. The league is continuing to head in the right direction and with greater television access, fans won’t have to jump through as many hurdles to watch their favorite players. And now that they’re partnering with Liberty Mutual, they have a chance to expand their horizons even further.

And who doesn’t want to see what elephants and emus have in common!

• Liberty, Liberty: New York’s WNBA Franchise Signs Jersey Patch Deal ($) - Jason Clinkscales - Sportico

Source: https://www.netsdaily.com/2025/5/2/...aboration-sports-limu-emu-ellie-elephant-doug

 

[Brooklyn Nets]

Clara Wu Tsai on how vision for New York Liberty became reality ... with nudge from Adam Silver

Columbia Business School - Bernstein Center for Leadership and Ethics

In accepting the Botwinick Prize from Columbia Business School, the governor of the Liberty touched on everything from her upbringing, to how the ‘superteam’ came together, to maximizing human performance.

The most revealing quote to come out of New York Liberty training camp has nothing to do with how they plan to defend their title, or how new additions and familiar faces will bolster their bench.

“I think some people forget, while there’s a lot of big other teams, New York really started these talks of ‘Let’s progress us forward. Let’s invest. Let’s make sure that our players have everything that they need.’”

That was one of those new additions, decade-long WNBA’er Natasha Cloud, discussing why she felt so excited to join the Liberty, and she didn’t once mention the team’s 2024 championship.

Fellow newcomer Isabelle Harrison chimed in, mentioning General Manager Jonathan Kolb: “He was like, ‘You guys just worry about basketball and we’ll worry about everything else.’ This is the first place where I’ve truly not only heard that, but seen it. Actions speak way louder than words.”

This is the reputation the New York Liberty have earned, not just internally, but throughout the WNBA landscape. It’s why they are set up for years of success despite an upcoming free-agent-palooza next offseason.

And it is largely a result of Clara Wu Tsai’s vision, which she recently outlined while accepting the Columbia Business School’s Botwinick Prize in Business Ethics and doing an extensive Q&A with the school’s faculty director Modupe Akinola.

In it, Wu Tsai spoke in some detail about how she and husband Joe, then 49% owners of the Nets, decided to buy the Liberty with a helpful nudge from Adam Silver and how while the Libs are a great success, there were doubts.

“When we bought the team, the Liberty was struggling financially, and playing in a 2,000-seat arena in Westchester, far from the Liberty’s fan base. So the first thing we did was relocate the Liberty to play in Barclays Center, allowing the team to play in an arena that was designed for professional sports,” she told Akinola. “We invested in best-in-class facilities, performance and nutrition, everything that they deserved, because they were and are elite professional athletes. And it was a constant, concerted investment in the players’ needs that paved the way for the 2024 WNBA championship win.”

Wu Tsai, listed as Vice Chair of BSE Global, governs the Liberty just as her husband Joe Tsai governs the Brooklyn Nets. She has become the prime mover of perhaps the WNBA’s most important franchise, whether in flying to Istanbul to recruit Breanna Stewart to the Liberty in 2022, or in eating a $500,000 fine by going against a league policy forbidding charter travel and booked their own flights.

That policy is now dead and gone, and the Tsais’ pioneering actions have spoken volumes not just to players like Harrison and Cloud, but apparently, to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver.

“He said we brought a non-traditional sports fan to the WNBA, and therefore to sports. So we’ve actually increased the pie of sports fans. But he also likes to talk about how we’ve built a brand.”

Indeed, the Liberty have. As we noted during their run to the title last fall, they are now a New York City institution, and there are few better or more exciting ways to spend a summer night in Brooklyn than by watching the Liberty play...

Women’s. Sports. pic.twitter.com/s5vFbpvdc5

— Gigi Speer (@gigi_speer) September 19, 2023​

Given where the team was half-a-decade ago, then owned by James Dolan, that’s damn-near unfathomable.

“The previous owner had put it up for sale in 2017, and by 2018 he couldn’t wait, and they moved the team to Westchester County Center,” said Wu Tsai of the 90-year-old facility, the third building the Liberty had played in over the past decade.

“It was kind of just, you know, just languishing. And of course, yes, by that point, the investment had stopped, as I mentioned. And the team was — well, all the numbers were declining, it was losing money. And so at that point, Adam [Silver] and [NBA Deputy Commissioner] Mark Tatum called us and said, ‘Hey you know, would you have a look at it?’”

(The conspiracy-minded can only hope Silver’s apparent fondness for the Tsais could result in Tatum announcing the #1 overall pick in the NBA Draft Lottery to Brooklyn on May 12, but we at NetsDaily obviously do not endorse such possibilities.)

It wasn’t an easy decision. Dolan estimated that his MSG had lost upwards of $100 million on the franchise. Wu Tsai admitted that there was opposition internally as well.

‘[T]hey were playing to 2,000 people. Barclays seats 18,000 people. That was a hard sell to our CEO, right?,” she said. “He was just like, ‘What are you doing?’ Like you know, ‘We can have concerts here. Like you want to, you know, like block off dates for these WNBA games with 2000 people.’ And so that was just a question of ‘okay, we know we’re going to lose money, just how long,’ okay?”

Charitably, Wu Tsai did not identify the executive nor whether he worked for BSG Global of the Tsai family investment office, Blue Pool Capital. The Tsais went ahead, paying a reported a mere $12 to $15 million, mainly in debt relief, to MSG. The franchise is now worth more than a quarter billion according to some estimates. In fact, Wu Tsai told a different Ivy League business school audience, this one from her alma mater at Harvard, last year that her goal is to get the Liberty a billion dollar valuation within a decade,

Despite the Botwinick Prize being presented to Wu Tsai, the person who earned the most praise on April 8 was not her, nor any New York Liberty player. It was GM instead Jonathan Kolb, who his boss said “masterminded the superteam.”

“Then the third decision was to hire exceptional leaders, and I can’t understate how important that is. We hired Jonathan Kolb, our GM, we hired him in 2019, and in 2020 we had a 2-and-20 record, we won two games only.

“And then from ‘21, we made the playoffs for four straight years ... He has a real special ability to identify overseas talent. And if you’ve watched us, you’ve seen Marine Johannès, you’ve seen Leonie Fiebich. Leonie was a killer last year, right? She came off the bench, and that last game when, you know, Sabrina [Ionescu] couldn’t get it going, Stewie couldn’t get it going with her threes, it was Leonie and Nyara [Sabally] who took over and allowed us to win. So his ability to really spot great talent, I have to hand it to Jonathan.”

Though it is not the first time Wu Tsai has spoken about New York’s journey to the top of the WNBA, it was the first time she really ran the gamut on her own journey, in addition to the team’s.

“Who in the world thinks that you’re going to have enough money to buy an NBA team? But I think for me, I grew up in Lawrence, Kansas, a college town, home of the Kansas Jayhawks. My parents were immigrants from Taiwan, they came on graduate student visas, and my dad got a PhD in econometrics, and my mom got a master’s in math from the University of Wisconsin. And the first job that my dad got was a job at the University of Kansas, and being a risk-averse immigrant, you know, he stayed there for 35 years.”

Toward the end of her conversation, she touched on the the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance, whose stated goal is to transform human health through the science of peak performance ... for men and women.

Or, in her own words: “We decided that we were not only going to, we were not just going to study healthy people, we were going to study elite athletes, and see if we could discover the biological principles behind performance. And by doing that, we knew that there might, lead to some orthogonal approach to something that might actually cure disease as well, but for sure we were going to learn about injury prevention, and rehabilitation from injury. And really just ways that, not just athletes, but all of us could lead healthier, more optimized lives.”

One part of the alliance that she highlighted at Columbia was the Wu Tsai Female Athlete Program which is run out of Boston Children’s Hospital. Wu Tsai noted the disparity between men and women’s athletes’ injuries ... and the lack of studies on the issue. USC star Juju Watkins recent ACL injury highlighted the fact that women athletes suffer torn ACL’s five to eight times more than their male counterparts.

“We have put a lot of money into this, because only 25% of all studies on athletes are done on females,” said Wu Tsai. “But yet we know that, you know, there’s a real difference between men and women, and how they will perform, and muscle load, fatigue, et cetera. There are a lot of things that I think are going to be very specific to women that we don’t know.

“[O]ur goal is to take a more holistic approach to female athletes, so that we’re looking at hormones, as well as nutrition, as well as psychological stressors. So, we’re bringing all that into the studies.”

Wu Tsai’s vision clearly goes far beyond a WNBA championship, and certainly beyond the dream building an NBA champion in the Brooklyn Nets. How her quest to optimize human performance affects these teams, who knows? Hopefully, the Liberty and Nets are each destined to be on the cutting edge for as long as they’re owned by the Tsais, and the stream of female athletes interested in playing for them will carry over to the NBA side.

But for now, Clara Wu Tsai has built a winner at Barclays Center, and it’s no secret how.

Source: https://www.netsdaily.com/2025/5/1/...ty-became-reality-with-nudge-from-adam-silver

 

[Brooklyn Nets]

ESPN: Brooklyn Nets No. 2 in future draft assets, behind Oklahoma City Thunder

Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images

The Nets have the potential with all their picks and all that cap space to dominate at least the early part of the off-season ... and their draft dominance goes deeper.

In a normal draft, one good measure of potential success is how many picks a team has in the top 40. For the Brooklyn Nets, with Nos. 6 (pre May 12 lottery), 19, 26, 27 and 36, dominate that measure. In its Draft Power Rankings for 2025, Tankathon puts the Nets at No. 1 ahead of even the teams with the best chance at Cooper Flagg: the Utah Jazz, Washington Wizards and Charlotte Hornets. Of course, that ranking is likely to change in nine days but again it’s a measure (and nine teams have no first rounders at all; two with no picks at all.)

A lot has been written and said about the Nets hoard (perhaps not as many as have been spilled on whether the Nets should have “tanked” better), but now, Bobby Marks, ESPN NBA insider and former Nets assistant GM and capologist, and Jeremy Woo, NBA draft analyst, take an even longer look, at picks beyond 2025, In their ESPN+ rankings, Sean Marks & co. are No. 2, according to the writers while at the same time, suggesting a strategy for June 25-26 at Barclays Center.

Marks and Woo rank Brooklyn just behind Oklahoma City and ahead of the Jazz and Rockets, making the top four two contenders and two rebuilding teams. It’s not just the number of picks going forward for Brooklyn. I’s that the Nets have all seven of their own first round picks from 2026 through 2032 ... at least at this point.

Woo in assessing the Nets 2025 prospects likes what the Nets have put together for 2025 as well and like virtually every other pundit thinks that the Nets are unlikely to use all five picks. As Brian Lewis of the Post has noted, the Nets development staff would have to work with five rookies as well as two players, Noah Clowney and Isaiah Whitehead, who are at 20 younger than a third of the projected draft class in 2025.

The rebuilding Nets head into predraft season holding a league-high five selections in the top 40. They also have the most salary cap space, creating an opportunity to remake their roster. Logically, it’s hard to see them rostering five rookies, and they can also open up additional cap room by consolidating some of their first-round selections. Roster-wise, Brooklyn could use help on the perimeter but should focus on adding talent regardless of need considering the fluidity of its situation and lack of obvious long-term building block on the roster. Some lottery luck could go a long way.

The point about salary cap space is an often overlooked aspect not just for next season but for the end of the picks’ rookie deals. If they wind up with a top four pick and keep the remaining three first round picks between Nos. 19 and 26, the cost in salary could reach $20 million next year. Flagg alone would cost more nearly $14 million (We’ll take it!) The Nets of late have been signing second rounders to two-way deals which don’t count against the cap. It’s not that Joe Tsai can’t afford it, but with the new CBA, owners and GMs have to watch and worry about luxury taxes, aprons and cap holds.

Beyond consolidating picks, as Woo mentioned, they can also use them in a trade or trades, perhaps as a way to pick up firsts in the 2026 draft which like 2025 is filled with big stars like A.J. Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, Cam Boozer and Nate Ament. Its depth compared to 2025 remains uncertain. Brooklyn currently has three picks in the 2026 draft, their own first and two seconds.

Source: https://www.netsdaily.com/2025/5/3/...ure-draft-assets-behind-oklahoma-city-thunder

 

[Brooklyn Nets]

NetsDaily Off-Season Report - No. 3

Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images

Every weekend, we’ll be updating the Nets’ off-season with bits and pieces of information, gossip, etc. to help fans get ready for ... whatever.

Another week of anxious waiting approaches. So, in the interim, let’s get nerdy!

The NBA Draft Lottery is a week from Monday night when a year of trades and tanking will finally pay off ... or not. That night, at halftime of a playoff game that night, Mark Tatum will draw cards each with team logos from oversized envelopes and NetsWorld will know where they’ll pick between No. 1 (a 9.0%) chance and No. 10 (a 0.2% chance) ... but not No. 5. According to the odds, the Nets most likely will pick at No. 7 (29.7%), followed by No. 8 (20.6%) and No. 3 (9.4%.)

The lottery will not just determine not where the Nets will pick in the lottery this year, but also when they’ll be able to use the last payment from the 2021 James Harden trade. If the 76ers finish 7th or worse, their pick goes to Oklahoma City and as part of the deal the 1-8 protected first rounder Philly owes the Nets will get used in 2027. If, on the other hand, the 76ers retain their own pick after the lottery, the pick owed the Nets drops back to 2028. And if that happens, it gets really complicated.

Maybe we wait till 2028 to see IF that happens. it would be better for Brooklyn if OKC walks away with the Sixers lottery pick this year. Here’s why: if the Nets get the pick in 2027 but the Sixers are bad and retain the pick in that draft, said pick rolls over into 2028. So the Nets would get two shots. But in the other scenario, where they get the pick in 2028, they have only one shot. (In either case, if in 2028, the Nets don’t the the Philly first, they’ll wind up with two seconds and some cash.)

The other point of interest for Nets fans is where the Rockets pick with the Suns first which fell into the lottery as the Phoenix Big Three collapsed late. Houston acquired the Suns pick from the Nets back on June 25 in the two teams monumental if controversial exchange of future firsts. With the ninth worst record, the Suns pick has a 3.8% chance of getting to No. 1 and a 17.4% chance of rewarding Rockets GM Rafael Stone with a top four pick. However, according to the odds, the Rockets are far more likely to land at No. 9, where their chances are 50.7% or No. 10 where they’re 28.3%.

A historical footnote: As we all know, this will be the first time the Nets will wind up with a lottery pick since 2010 when they got the overall No. 3 pick and took Derrick Favors. But that’s not the last time a Nets rep actually sat on the dias in Chicago. In 2012, the Nets had sent their first rounder to Portland, but the pick was protected top 3. So Irina Pavlova, then president of Prokhorov’s ONEXIM Sports & Entertainment, sat on the dias. The pick fell to No. 6, the Nets lost the pick and the Blazers took a mid-major guard from Weber State named Dame Lillard. (And no, the Nets would not have picked Lillard if they had retained the pick. They liked Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (!) and Thomas Robinson (!!). Lillard wasn’t in their top six.)

Beyond the nerd talk, Adam Silver spoke this week on a fan podcast about the value of high draft picks on team futures. Reminder, he said “high,” not the overall No. 1.

“When a perceived high-value class comes along — this is a great example — analytics tell a certain story to teams, and that is that there’s nothing like a high draft pick if you want to change your fortunes and rebuild your team,” Silver said as Brian Lewis wrote Sunday.

“In some cases, you have fans saying to teams, ‘What are you doing? You don’t want to finish in the middle of the pack. You’re better off the worse.’ That used to never be the case in the old days. But the fans are sophisticated, too, and they’re saying, ‘Look who’s coming in the draft. You’re better off finishing down the standings.’

“At least now with the draft lottery and the flattened odds, teams can demonstrate it’s still a true long shot.”

What was interesting, at least to us, is that there was no indication in Silver’s comments that league is going to do much if anything to stop the rampant tanking we saw this season and is likely again next season with another strong if not as deep draft class.

Round one exits​

The three rotation players the Nets dumped during the season, Dennis Schroder, Dorian Finney-Smith and Ben Simmons, are all Cancun-bound. Schroder who got shuffled from Brooklyn to Golden State to Detroit, was sent packing by the Knicks; DFS who played well in L.A. for the Lakers, got bounced by the Timberwolves while Ben Simmons is literally going fishing after he didn’t play in Game 7 Sunday vs. the Nuggets (after not playing in game 6 either. More ignominy for Ben10.)

Schroder who played well for both Brooklyn and Detroit and Simmons who did not are both unrestricted free agents. DFS has a player option at $15.4 million next season but in his exit interview he claimed he hasn’t really thought about it.

“No, not really,” Finney-Smith said. “[I was] just trying to get to the second round, man. I’ll worry about that around the draft and summer league and all that stuff.”

DFS turned 32 Sunday. Happy birthday, Dorian.

Draft Sleeper of the Week​

It’s getting tight at the top of the first round. After four players — Cooper Flagg, Dylan Harper, Ace Bailey and V.J. Edgecombe —were seen all season as the top of the top in a deep draft, mock drafts of late have become a jumble with players like Jeremiah Fears, Tre Johnson, Khaman Maluach and Kon Knueppel bumping up against the top echelon. In fact, three new mock drafts, SB Nation, The Athletic, and NBADraft.net have Bailey dropping below Edgecombe and Knueppel (SB Nation), Johnson and Edgecombe (The Athletic) and Edgecombe (NBADraft.) Meanwhile, international players are starting to rise, particularly the French.

Of all the fast risers, the two of the most intriguing are Fears, last week’s Draft Sleeper, and this week’s: Tre Johnson of Texas.

Jonathan Givony of Draft Express and ESPN spent time recently with Johnson in Santa Monica where he’s been working out since the end of the Longhorns’ season...

Hard to find a more impressive prospect in a workout setting than Tre Johnson. 6'6, with ridiculous shot-making prowess and machine like consistency, Johnson looked awfully impressive in Santa Barbara. pic.twitter.com/fExPGe4b1M

— Jonathan Givony (@DraftExpress) May 1, 2025​

One of the older freshman in the 2025 Draft class, Johnson has a reputation for discipline, maturity and oh yeah, shooting, shooting, shooting.

In a discussion of some of the prospects with Malika Andrews after his return, Givony was asked who beyond Flagg had impressed him.

“A guy who really stood out to me is Tre Johnson in Santa Barbara,” said Givony who’s tracked the NBA Draft for 20 years. “He’s been there for four and a half weeks. He’s already taken over 30,000 shots in that span. They track every shot he has taken and, Malika, he has not missed many of those shots from what I saw with my own eyes. 6’6”, huge wingspan (6’10”) incredible shot making prowess, range, ability to come off screens, shoot off the dribble

“But what really impressed me the most was the laser focus that he has in the pre-draft process with the attention to detail that goes into working on his body every day, working on his mind and working on his craft. Tre Johnson is a guy I can’t wait to see at the NBA Combine next week.”

Sam Vecenie of The Athletic also made the tour of workout camps and posted a rave similar to Givony’s in justifying mocking him ahead of everyone but Flagg and Harper.

Johnson was the most impressive player I saw working out during my trip to the U.S. He had one of the best shooting workouts I’ve ever seen from a teenage player, showcasing a serious-minded intentionality about how he goes about his craft. He displayed the ability to hit shots off movement at a high level, something that he rarely got the chance to do in an offensive scheme at Texas that could be charitably described as anachronistic but fairly described as hideously archaic.

Johnson isn’t all potential like a lot of his classmates. He is already an accomplished prospect, leading the SEC in scoring at 19.9 ppg on shooting splits of 43/40/87 despite the limitations Vecenie cited. There are questions about his strength and defense, as Isaiah Maldonado of NBADraft wrote, but the overall package is impressive. Interestingly, Maldonado compared Johnson to Cam Thomas.

Here’s the requisite highlights:

We don’t have specifics about how many times the Nets scouted Johnson at Texas but back in November they got a very close-up view of him. Texas, in the New York for a game at the Garden, practiced at HSS Training Center, a frequent stop for top college teams playing in the city...

thanks for having us @BrooklynNets #HookEm pic.twitter.com/gAQJ4g6moe

— Texas Men’s Basketball (@TexasMBB) November 21, 2024​

Ya gotta think with the Nets offensive limitations, Johnson has to be on the Nets short list if they wind picking No. 3 or later.

Final Note​

Lucas Kaplan wrote this week of Clara Wu Tsai’s hour-long Q&A at Columbia Business School on April 8. She had been awarded the school’s Botwinick Prize for Business Ethics. In it, she discussed in detail how she and husband Joe got involved with the New York Liberty back in late 2018 and early 2019. The Tsai family investment office, Blue Pool Capital, had already invested in a 49% stake in the Brooklyn Nets and were going to take full control in the months ahead. At the time, they had no interest in the WNBA.

As she recounted, that changed when Adam Silver and his No. 2, Mark Tatum, called on them.

“The previous owner had put it up for sale in 2017, and by 2018 he couldn’t wait, and they moved the team to Westchester County Center,” said Wu Tsai referring to James Dolan. Indeed, Westchester was the third building the Liberty had played in over the previous decade under Dolan’s reign following Prudential Center and the Garden.

“It was kind of just, you know, just languishing. And of course, yes, by that point, the investment had stopped, as I mentioned. And the team was — well, all the numbers were declining, it was losing money. And so at that point, Adam [Silver] and [NBA Deputy Commissioner] Mark Tatum called us and said, ‘Hey you know, would you have a look at it?’”

After running the numbers, buying the Liberty for trinkets and baubles, and moving them to Brooklyn, the franchise won its first WNBA championship within five years and the value of the franchise now has be around $250 million.

But beyond the success of the Libs, the story is just another indicator of how much the NBA and Silver has come to rely on Joe and Clara Wu Tsai.

The big deal for the league, of course, is the NBA’s return to China which Joe Tsai played a big role after a six-year hiatus born of a 2019 controversy that began with a Daryl Morey tweet encouraging a free Hong Kong. He will be rewarded in October when the Brooklyn Nets fly to Macao, the entertainment capital of south China, for two preseason games with the Suns. It’s part of a $125 million deal between China and the NBA that will bring teams to both Macau and the nearby city of Zuhai over the next five years. Doesn’t hurt that Asian TV right are up soon.

To commemorate the deal back in December, six former NBA stars participated in a celebrity game at the Venetian in Macao where the Nets-Suns games will be played. Former Net and Chinese Basketball Association star Stephon Marbury was among those on the court. So was Joe Tsai...

The assist from Ray Allen is nice. #NBALegendsCelebrityGame #Macao pic.twitter.com/RPelNR5Mcs

— Joe Tsai (@joetsai1999) December 7, 2024​

Also, the Tsais role in the WNBA is not limited to the Liberty. In 2022, the NBA agreed to restructure ownership of the women’s league by selling a 16% stake in the W to a group of investors that included Nike, Michael Dell of Dell Computers, Linda Henry, Boston Globe chairman and sports executive; Dee Haslam, part owner of the Cleveland Brown; former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Miami Heat owner Micky Arison and Laurene Powell Jobs ... as well as the Tsais. The W needed the money “to address some of the league’s obstacles to growth and generating new revenue.” (And this was after the WNBA had fined the Tsais $500,000 for covertly chartering flights for Liberty players! As one BSE Global exec said of the fine, “that wasn’t a fine; it was an investment,” in that players saw the Tsais’ desire to improve their amenities as an enticement, not a sanction.)

In fact, the Tsais along with Ted Leonsis of the Washington Wizards and Mystics are the only people with interests in the three entities that control ownership of the WNBA: the owners of 30 NBA teams, the owners of 13 WNBA teams and the 2022 investment group.

Bottom line in the NBA, the WNBA, China, etc: It’s been Joe and Clara Wu Tsai to the rescue on countless occasions. As Clara told the Columbia Business School, Silver has given the Tsais a number of compliments of late. And no, as Lucas wrote, we are not endorsing any conspiracy theory that the lottery will be rigged to help the Nets. On the other hand, the commissioner probably wouldn’t be upset either if the Nets won it.

Source: https://www.netsdaily.com/2025/5/4/24423537/netsdaily-off-season-report-no-3

 

[Brooklyn Nets]

Jonathan Kolb announces Betnijah Laney-Hamilton will miss season, addresses looming 2026 offseason

Photo by David Dow/NBAE via Getty Images

New York Liberty’s General Manager spoke for 40 minutes on Saturday afternoon, shedding light on the team’s most pressing roster questions

The New York Liberty hosted their first annual Media Appreciation Day on Saturday, driving dozens of media members out of their home offices and onto the practice court at Barclays Center. We participated in drills led by New York’s coaching staff, allowing Sandy Brondello & Co. to laugh at us (not me, though) and build an easier working relationship. Cool stuff...

Media members working on their ball handling for Liberty Media Appreciation Day. #WNBATwitter pic.twitter.com/vYANUJDlBd

— Alford Corriette (@alfcorriette) May 3, 2025​

More importantly, it allowed what seemed like half of all WNBA media to ask General Manager Jonathan Kolb questions in his season-opening presser, which lasted forty minutes.

While Kolb discussed the Liberty’s new practice facility — expected to be completed in Greenpoint, Brooklyn for the 2027 season — next offseason’s free-agent-palooza, and New York’s continuing investment in international talent, the most important news of the day concerned Betnijah Laney-Hamilton.

Laney-Hamilton suffered a meniscus tear while playing in Unrivaled this winter, and underwent surgery soon after, her fourth knee surgery in as many years.

Said Kolb, “We’re fully confident that she’s going to make a full return, and she’s going to have a great opportunity to be the healthiest she’s been in some years once that happens. In terms of this season, I think it’s fair to assume we will be suspending that contract.”

A contract suspension means that Laney-Hamilton will be unable to return at any point in 2025, and that the Liberty have one more open roster spot and her $185,400 salary off the books. The team will also have exclusive negotiating rights with the soon-to-be 32-year-old next offseason.

That’s no small detail, considering how hectic next offseason will likely be. With the current CBA expiring after this season, there will be a major salary cap spike in 2026, and thus, the vast majority of the league has positioned themselves to be free agents when the new CBA kicks in.

Said Kolb: “I think where we can, we try to build for the future. We try to make things as sustainable as possible. I think if you look at our contract layout and who’s under contract for ‘26 and beyond, we’re really happy with those players and excited where we will be kind of starting next year.”

While Nyara Sabally, Leonie Fiebich, and Marquesha Davis are the only players who fit that bill, that’s a much better starting point than many other teams are dealing with. It also helps that the Liberty have become perhaps the W’s preeminent destination for players, as governor Clara Wu Tsai touched on last week.

Kolb added to those comments, explaining why players want to find a way to Brooklyn: “I think, here, we’re continuing to focus on making this a player-first organization. We want to partner with our players.”

And it’s tough to argue with Kolb when looking at previews of the Liberty’s practice facility...

A new era is coming!

The NY Liberty are thrilled to announce the opening of its 75,000 sq. ft. state-of-the-art practice facility opening in 2027 in Greenpoint, Brooklyn! From custom player suites to top-tier recovery & training spaces, this facility will be built for… pic.twitter.com/qKwfU5T1UY

— New York Liberty (@nyliberty) March 27, 2025​

“The part of [the facility] that I think is incredibly special is the design elements from our players,” explained the GM. “I think that’s really important. I can sit up here all day and say, ‘We’re going to have this type of tech and we’re gonna have this type of recovery and all of these spaces.’ It doesn’t matter, I’m not the one that’s really utilizing it. I just thankful to have a window. But for it to be designed by our players for their different needs, I think, is also going to help us future-proof this for the next iteration of Liberty rosters, right? We want this to be incredibly sustainable and special for everybody that walks through those doors.”

Over the past half-decade, the seafoam have gone from an afterthought in Westchester to, once again, an iconic part of the city’s sports culture. Given their obvious appeal to players around the league, they’re poised to continue on that trend line no matter what happens next offseason.

Before then, though, there’s business to handle. Despite all the questions about 2026 and beyond, Kolb consistently brought the conversation back to ‘25, and rest assured there will be some major challenges in repeating.

It’s not just Laney-Hamilton’s absence, either. Three key rotation players in Marine Johannès, Leonie Fiebich, and Nyara Sabally will miss much of June while competing in Eurobasket for their respective countries. Such is the cost of building an international roster...

At media availabilities with GM Jonathan Kolb today, I asked him about the Liberty’s success abroad and domestic. #WNBATwitter pic.twitter.com/FiHuJ3dKI2

— Alford Corriette (@alfcorriette) May 3, 2025​

While the skeleton of the 2025 Liberty is similar to the team that won their first WNBA championship in 2024, this year’s run will have to look a little different. Newcomers Natasha Cloud and Rebekah Gardner will play crucial roles. Leonie Fiebich will carry more of an offensive load, and Marine Johannès will have to be more impactful than in 2023, where she was largely a non-factor in the playoffs.

But as Jonathan Kolb notes, there are far worse positions to be in.

“I don’t have a crystal ball. I can’t tell you exactly what the future will hold. But I will bet on us.”

Source: https://www.netsdaily.com/2025/5/5/...-miss-season-addresses-looming-2026-offseason

 

[Brooklyn Nets]

Brooklyn Nets announce ‘SCOUT’, a look at how they’re approaching 2025 NBA Draft

The new documentary series will give Nets fans an inward look at the team we’re not accustomed to seeing

Turns out, the guys actually making the picks this June are really excited about it too.

This morning, the Brooklyn Nets announced SCOUT, a nine-part documentary focused on the team’s preparations for the 2025 NBA Draft. For anyone who’s been living under a rock for...yeah, almost a year now, the Nets have four first round picks in the draft as well as a second, giving them the most top-40 draft capital of any team.

The first episode won’t drop till Tuesday, but the Nets gave us all a quick look at the production with a trailer Monday...

Introducing SCOUT, a nine-part documentary series offering an inside look at the Brooklyn Nets scouting process as the team prepares for the 2025 NBA Draft.

First episode drops tomorrow, May 6 at noon on https://t.co/fDlLbZnV3o pic.twitter.com/yHzqwzaO58

— Brooklyn Nets (@BrooklynNets) May 5, 2025​

For a team that often keeps things buttoned up, the trailer and final production promise to captivate casual fans and analysts, whether self-appointed or not, equally and extensively. While the Nets have a history of making in-house productions that allow fans to take a closer look at the franchise with The Bridge, this project appears to focus more on the scouting department rather than the active team, hence the name.

With that said, sources tell NetsDaily there will be no footage included from draft prospect workouts, nor lists made available of who Brooklyn’s had in for them. There are limits.

But from what we can tell via the trailer, the documentary will take us inside meetings and in front of interviews with shot callers in the front office. Stylistically, it looks similar to Hard Knocks: Offseason with the New York Giants. (I don’t think its possible for the Nets, or anyone for that matter, to have as bad of a season after the GMen did last year but knock on some wood just in case.)

The trailer largely features B.J. Johnson, Sean Marks, and Jordi Fernández. Joe Tsai even made a cameo about two-thirds of the way into the promo, seen chatting with Marks who points in the distance, perhaps at the Nets top-secret Big Board. Also seen were vice presidents for strategic planning, Makar Gevorkian the Nets capologist, and basketball analytics, Glenn DuPaul, and a number of veteran scouts. The Nets have one of the biggest if not the biggest scouting staff in the NBA.

The Brooklyn GM, to no surprise, seemed quite cognizant of how important this summer is for the franchise.

“This ain’t coming around again,” he said at one point. “This comes around once. I’m talking once in a lifetime ... We know exactly what’s at stake and we’ve got to get it right.”

At one point, Marks remarked that his search for potential new Nets included a trip to Australia’s Gold Coast last year and he’s seen personally scouting 6’8” Sydney Kings wing Alex Toohey at the NBL’s Blitz back in September.

Sean Marks personally scouted Toohey in Australia early in the season. https://t.co/tHCOyLAbey

— NetsDaily (@NetsDaily) March 25, 2025​

The Eiffel Tower, a set of Spanish flags, and a Nanterre 92 basketball court were also shown in flashes, hinting that parts of the doc will follow Nets scouts as they checked out prospects in France and Spain. Simone Casali, the Nets international scouting director, was shown briefly at a French game while Johnson and another scout were seen boarding a Spanish train.

There other shots of Johnson and Marks at games as well as a recent meeting of veteran scouts at HSS Training Center.

Jonathan Givony, ESPN’s long-time draft guru, Jonathan Givony, also spoke in the doc, saying, “They do a lot of work behind the scenes to make sure they know everything about these players and they want to know is this a person they want to invest in.”

It also featured some charming Brooklyn B-roll footage, along with a soundbite from Johnson explaining the team’s plans to “rebuild in a way that highlights Brooklyn, and our culture, and our organization.”

Johnson also said something that might give fans a view into the rebuild.

“To get this draft right and to really nail it — not only for the talent level that’s in it, but the type of people that we really want,” said Johnson. “We don’t look at it as a one time thing. This could set us up for the next 10 years of this organization. So to me personally, we get these next three years right, we’re in a really good position.”

Indeed, there’s a new sense of wanting to push the product. They know fans aren’t going to just tune into a 26-win team for no reason.

The first episode releases tomorrow, May 6th, at noon (EST) on Brooklyn’s official Youtube page.

Source: https://www.netsdaily.com/2025/5/5/...look-at-how-theyre-approaching-2025-nba-draft

 

[Brooklyn Nets]

Kenny Atkinson turned Brooklyn Nets firing into motivation that led to Coach of the Year

Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images

Kenny Atkinson is the NBA Coach of the Year. How his time in Brooklyn, including his firing got him there.

Tuesday should’ve been a great day for Kenny Atkinson. Indeed, he was officially announced as the NBA Coach of the Year in the morning, a singular achievement, but later in the day, his Cleveland Cavaliers lost in a close one in the second round, putting the East’s best team down 0-2, to the Indiana Pacers. Knowing how competitive Atkinson is, you’d have to think the big moment of the day was the latter event. He hates to lose.

In his story on the award, Brian Lewis quoted Atkinson about just how bad things got in his first two years as head coach of the Brooklyn Nets in 2017 and 2018 when his teams won 21 and 28 games and shuttled marginal players through the new training facility in hopes of hitting on something. With no picks and only a little cap space, it was a bleak time and it took a toll.

“I was a little crazy,” Atkinson recalled to the Post. “I was desperate to make it. I didn’t want to fail. I really got after it, but I knew even after two years in Brooklyn, it was bad for my health. It was almost like we’re at the bottom, we’re the worst team in the league. There was a desperation to get better.”

Then after those two years of misery, the team surprised everyone including ownership and management by winning 42 games in 2018-19 and getting the sixth seed in the East. That success was one of the factors that attracted Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving to fill out the Clean Sweep that June. KD in fact said he had studied Atkinson’s post-game videos and liked what he saw there as well as on the court. But none of that alleviated the anxiety as the superstars didn’t exactly show full support, as Lewis wrote.

After Atkinson called a postgame meeting, Durant — who wasn’t playing — spent much of it ripping the state of the team. Irving was vocal about not needing a hard-driving coach. Atkinson — who was admittedly maniacal in his intensity, furiously pedaling away on his exercise bike while rewatching losses at 4:30 a.m. — was fired before the end of that season.

Similarly, Erik Slater recalls what was going on back then:

“Him and the max guys [Durant and Irving] weren’t necessarily on the same page,” Spencer Dinwiddie told Matt Sullivan in the latter’s book, Can’t Knock the Hustle. “If we’re not all on the same page, then somebody’s gotta go, and it’s not going to be them.”

The Nets tried to cast the departure as a mutual agreement but Atkinson has repeatedly and consistently said it was an outright firing, the end of the GM/head coach combo that had brought the team success, turning a miserable situation around in less than three years. As Stefan Bondy, then covering the Nets for the Daily News, famously tweeted...

Here is something you can take to the bank: If Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant wanted Kenny Atkinson to be the coach, he'd be the coach.

— Stefan Bondy (@SbondyNBA) March 7, 2020​

In the aftermath, there was reports that one point of irritation was the superstars’ desire to see their guy, DeAndre Jordan, get starters’ minutes instead of then-emerging big Jarrett Allen. KD didn’t like the roster-building and then there were what one executive described as Kyrie’s “antics” not further detailed. He also refused cortisone shots to help his recurring shoulder woes.

Atkinson has said he was told on exiting Brooklyn that he had not handled the superstar part of his job. That quite obviously changed after his championship stint as an assistant with the superstar-laden Warriors two years later. Moreover, Atkinson has said he’s a better coach as a result of being dumped by the Nets. “Definitely not the same coach I was in Brooklyn,” he said earlier this season.

“I’ve grown a lot. I’ve changed a lot as a coach, which is a good thing. I’ve progressed. I’ve developed,” Atkinson added. “The range of experiences I’ve had from [the] conference finals with the Clippers… obviously Golden State and the championship in 2022. And then the experience I had [last] summer, being in the Olympics (with Team France.) That’s kind of been my philosophy: How many experiences can I get in this league?

“And that was part of the thought process after I got fired in Brooklyn, I was like, ‘Man.’ You’re a little taken aback. And then you’re like, ‘OK, how do we turn this into how can I get better?’ And, luckily, I felt like I’ve made the right decisions.”

The Cavaliers predicament will require a lot of “right decisions” if Atkinson, Allen and Donovan Mitchell are to avoid a shocking post-season exit after racking up 64 regular season wins. For Atkinson, it won’t be the first time he’ll be dealing with a new challenge or gotten beyond it. After all, he didn’t get all those votes for Coach of the Year for nothing.

Meanwhile, Brooklyn is on its third coach in the five years since Atkinson departed. Jordi Fernandez, like Atkinson, is a rookie head coach during a rebuild. Like Atkinson, he was seen as the NBA’s best assistant coach before Sean Marks tapped him. And at some point, still TBD, he’ll be asked to coach a superstar or two. How that works out will likely be a big tell for the organization.

• How Kenny Atkinson’s ‘desperate’ stint with the Nets fueled his Coach of the Year rise ($) - Brian Lewis - New York Post
• Kenny Atkinson gets last laugh over Nets after winning Coach of the Year with Cavs - Erik Slater - Clutch Points

Source: https://www.netsdaily.com/2025/5/7/...into-motivation-that-led-to-coach-of-the-year

 

[Brooklyn Nets]

Report: Brooklyn Nets open workouts at HSS in anticipation of big Draft

The sound of bouncing basketballs and squeaking sneakers is heard again at HSS Training Center as Brooklyn Nets host workouts

The scouting for the 2025 NBA Draft is done. Now it’s about combines and workouts and according to the Ary Report, who tracks such things, the Brooklyn Nets have begun hosting prospects at HSS Training Center.

Here’s the tweet from Tuesday night...

The Brooklyn Nets will host a pre-draft workout tomorrow featuring Wake Forest’s Hunter Sallis, West Virginia’s Javon Small, Houston’s J’Wan Roberts, and Temple’s Steve Settle lll, league sources tell me.

— Ary (@Ary_Report) May 7, 2025​

There were probably two other prospects in the Wednesday workout. NBA teams normally have six players in for workouts. Some teams will announce who’s in but the Nets are not among them.

With four first rounders and a second, the most in the league, expect a large number of prospects to make the trek to 139th Street. The Nets and other NBA teams use the workouts not just to cull the best of the best, but also to take a look at players who could wind up on two-way deals, Summer League and Long Island Nets rosters. (In SCOUT, the Nets ongoing docuseries about the scouting process, Matt MacDonald, Long Island’s GM, is shown at games and in meetings.)

Of the prospects Bhullar cites, the two most prominent are Hunter Sallis, a 22-year-old 6’5” shooting guard who’s averaged 18 points a game for the Demon Deacons earning All-ACC honors both years. Sallis, a cousin of former Net James Harden, is currently mocked at the 59th and last pick in the Draft. Here’s some video.

Settle’s agent confirmed the Ary Report with a tweet...

Steve Settle, III. is in Brooklyn today for his first NBA Pre-Draft workout with the Brooklyn Nets!

The 6’11” Small Forward from Temple averaged 12.6 PPG and 6.2 RPG this season while shooting 41.6% from 3!

The first of many for Steve and our OMS Rookie class, good luck Steve! pic.twitter.com/X7zLpw1xYY

— One Motive Sports (@OneMotiveSports) May 7, 2025​

Settle didn’t make ESPN Big Board of top 100 prospects, but Settle in particular has an interesting resume’ In addition, 6’8” power forward J’Wan Roberts averaged 10.5 points and 6.8 rebounds for NCAA runner-up Houston, including 11 points, 12 rebounds, five assists and two steals in the Cougars upset of Duke in the Final Four.

As for the lottery picks, expect to see them later in the process, particularly after Monday night’s Draft Lottery.

Source: https://www.netsdaily.com/2025/5/7/...-workouts-at-hss-in-anticipation-of-big-draft

 

[Brooklyn Nets]

Deadlines and Commitments: The Moment is at Hand edition

Monday is the big day, the Draft Lottery, but there will be a lot of other big decisions between now and October.

The future is close to being the present. The NBA holds its annual Draft Lottery at 7:00 p.m. ET on ESPN, just before Game 4 of the New York Knicks - Boston Celtics EC semis. Mark Tatum will pull cards until there are only left. Then, the process will pause during a commercial break the final order. Ugh.

Beyond that, though, there will be a lot of other decisions before now and the Brooklyn Nets preseason trip to Macao, China. Not to mention the New York Liberty’s defense of their first WNBA championship which begins five days after the Lottery. A busy and likely historic summer.

—May 9: Liberty open two-game preseason vs. Connecticut Sun at Barclays Center. Breanna Stewart sill not play.

—May 9-11: G League Elite Camp. The league has invited 44 players, mostly collegians, to the G League combine which is taking place at the WinTrust Arena in Chicago.

—May 11-18: NBA Draft Combine in Chicago. Another 78 players will be at WinTrust. More draft workouts, more scouts in Chicago for all the measurements and scrimmages ... plus player interviews. And expect rumors upon rumors. With the full draft order set, expect teams to talk about trades.

—May 12: NBA Draft Lottery in Chicago. Where will the Nets pick? What happens if you drink champagne after taking Zanax? Who sits on the podium? With the sixth best odds, the Nets would have a 9.0% chance at Cooper Flagg and a 37.2% chance at a top four pick. But they also have a 29.7% at getting the seventh pick and 20.6% at picking at No. 8.

One other thing to watch other than where the Nets will pick. If the 76ers retain their first in the 2025 lottery — it’s protected 1-6 — the first rounder Philly owes the Nets moves from 2027, protected 1-8, to 2028.

The Nets are hosting a watch party at the Qatari Airways Club inside Barclays Center. Lots of cameras will be rolling.

—-May 12: Second Liberty preseason game at University of Oregon where Libs’ Sabrina Ionescu is being honored. Opponent is the Toyota Antelopes of Japan’s Women ‘s Basketball League.

—May 17: New York Liberty open defense of their WNBA title. Banner raising and ring ceremony at Barclays Center!

—May 31-June 2: Adidas Eurocamp in Treviso, Italy. The NBA’s international draft combine. Expect some international players to rise. The final big camp for the 2025 Draft.

—June 5: NBA Finals 2025 begin. All games will be televised on ABC.

—June 15: NBA Draft Early Entry Withdrawal Deadline (5:00 p.m. ET.) College players may think twice about staying in the Draft. They could be forced to choose between guaranteed six or seven figure NIL money vs. possibly not be drafted at all or getting a two-way contract. That money won’t be guaranteed and could be less than the two-way.

—June 25-26: NBA Draft. Both rounds are at Barclays Center, the first on the night of June 25, the second the next night. Who will the Nets pick? At the moment, the Nets have four first rounders and a second rounder, most in the league. More than the February trade deadline, the days before the Draft are historically Sean Marks’ time. In eight of his nine years as GM, he’s made at least one move, some big, some small, within 48 hours of the draft. Last year, he made two with the Nets and Rockets that changed the direction of the franchise almost precisely 48 hours before Adam Silver stepped to the stage.

—June 29: Jalen Wilson, Keon Johnson, Tyrese Martin and Drew Timme have team options for 2025-26. Maxwell Lewis has a partial guarantee on an extension. Qualifying Offers must be extended to Cam Thomas, Day’Ron Sharpe and Ziaire Williams as well for the Nets to retain their rights. Expect the Nets to not extend a qualifying offer to Williams. Because he was a high draft pick — No. 10 in 2021 — Williams qualifying offer is more than $8 million which would be added to the Nets cap. They can still sign him, of course.

—June 30: NBA teams may begin negotiating with free agents (beginning at 6:00 p.m. ET). Applies to re-signings as well. Nets will have an estimated $50 million to $70 million in cap space, more than any other team by a long shot. Brooklyn can tender offer sheets to restricted free agents. And other teams can do the same with the Nets RFAs.

—July 6: Free agent signings and Draft Day trades become official. Cam Johnson can be extended up to three years and $100+ million.

—July 7: Nets $23.3 million trade exception from Mikal Bridges trade expires.

—July 10-20: NBA Summer League in Las Vegas With all those draft picks plus a number of young players from this year’s team and camp invites, Brooklyn should be one of the most interesting squads.

—July 17–21: WNBA All-Star Break

—July 19: WNBA All-Star Game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

—Early August TBA: NBA schedule for 2025-26 is released.

—September 28: Rough starting date for training camp and Media Day for those teams like the Nets who play overseas in preseason The Nets, of course, are playing in China.

—October 10: First of two NBA China Games vs. Phoenix Suns at the 14,000 capacity Venetian in Macao.

—October 12: Second of two NBA China Games. Same opponent, same venue

Source: https://www.netsdaily.com/2025/5/8/24426558/deadlines-and-commitments-the-moment-is-at-hand-edition

 

[Brooklyn Nets]

NY Liberty vs. Connecticut Sun preview: Welcome to the pre-season

Photo by Catalina Fragoso/NBAE via Getty Images

The New York Liberty begin their brief preseason slate at home against the rebuilding Connecticut Sun.

One week away before things start for real. The New York Liberty are back and are here putting the finishing touches on a productive training camp. The Connecticut Sun are in a full rebuild and are beginning to plan for a new era.

Where to follow the game​

My9 has us covered locally. League Pass for everyone outside of NY. Tip after 7:00 p.m. ET.

Injuries​

Betnijah Laney-Hamilton is out. Breanna Stewart is out tonight, but should suit up on Monday. Leonie Fiebich is overseas and out as well.

Diamond DeShields, Leila Lacan, Aneesah Morrow, and Saniya Rivers are out. Amy Okonkwo is questionable.

The game​

Preseason is all about exploration. You fine tune some things, start developing rhythm, and take extended looks at players who don’t usually get big minutes. For Sandy Brondello and the coaching staff, they’ll get a chance to see their offense in action against outside competition. New assistant coach Sonia Raman spoke to our own Lucas Kaplan and said:

“We’re starting with our running habits. Trying to get out and win those first three steps and see if we can beat teams up the floor. You know, try to be as organized as we can in that flow stage of the offense, you know, as we downshift a little bit and slow down. And then obviously, we progress to that half-court offense and trying to really be able to execute with teams.”

New York led the WNBA in offensive rating, and GM Jonathan Kolb stated he would like to see the team get even more shot attempts at the rim this season. The Liberty led the WNBA in field goal percentage inside the restricted area last season, and with the improvements they made in the offseason, should make a killing on the interior throughout the season.

With roster spots being so limited, players on the bubble will look to make the absolute most of their opportunity here. One such player is Esmery Martinez. The 2024 draft pick has impressed in training camp and a good showing in front of her hometown crowd.

For the Sun, they’re being led by a first time head coach in the WNBA. Rachid Meziane has a wealth of overseas experience, but will be leading a Sun team that’s trying to find their place in the new WNBA landscape. Meziane recently spoke about the work his team is doing in camp and acknowledged the reality the group is facing:

“All the players are very enthusiastic, and they are happy to be here. Everybody wants to make the team better and practice after practice. So, I’m happy about that, but I can see that we have a lot of work to do with this team because this team is still very young.”

Their top two draft picks, Aneesah Morrow and Saniya Rivers are out, so they won’t get a chance to get some reps against the champs. Until told otherwise, the Sun will be counting on the veteran duo of Tina Charles and Marina Mabrey to guide the kids.

Player to watch: Leaonna Odom​

Another Liberty draft pick will get a chance to put on a show and boost their odds of making the roster. Odom was drafted back in 2020 and played parts of two seasons with the Liberty. She’s been away from basketball for the past few years as Achilles injuries kept her out of action. She’s back and has impressed everyone in camp thus far. Sonia Raman spoke about Odom’s play with Jackie Powell of The Next:

“I think she’s giving herself grace to make mistakes and to learn from them, and to understand that it can’t be perfect. And if you do everything with the idea of, ‘I have to do this perfectly to make the team,’ it’s not always the best approach to actually succeeding if it’s all outcome based. So, I think her being very process based has been really helpful for her as she’s trying to take these steps forward.”

She should get plenty of minutes tonight, and Liberty fans will get to see her drive to the basket and wreak havoc on the defensive side of the ball.

From the Vault​

The United States Women’s National Team has some new leadership. Basketball Hall of Famer Sue Bird will serve as the Managing Director for Team USA, the first for the US Women’s Team. Let’s take a trip back in time and watch Sue’s Olympics story

And on Saturday night, WWE Backlash will take place from St. Louis! The hometown hero Randy Orton will try to take down his long time rival and current champ, John Cena! These two have faced off many a time, so let’s take it back to their first Championship match against each other

More reading: CT Insider, Swish Appeal, Breakaway, Women’s Basketball Roundup, The Local W, New York Daily News, New York Post, The Athletic. NY Liberty Fan TV, Fansided, Just Women’s Sports, SI All Knicks, Winsidr, No Cap Space, Her Hoop Stats, CBS Sports, Yahoo Sports, and The Next

Source: https://www.netsdaily.com/2025/5/9/...dom-sandy-brondello-esmery-martinez-preseason