Brooklyn Nets are in deep rebuild ... don’t tell the kids!
The Nets held a youth basketball camp this week and Brian Lewis spoke to three of the Nets 20-somethings. They see opportunity, not a rebuild. When Brian Lewis mentioned to Jalen Wilson that despite being only 23, he’s older than seven of his teammates (eight if you count former lottery pick Killian Hayes who’s an Exhibit 10,) Wilson had a good laugh. Then he got serious. The Brooklyn Nets may be seen as a bad team, may be in a deep rebuild. Just don’t tell him and his fellow youngsters. For them, it’s an opportunity.
“Of course,” Wilson told The Post while helping run the Nets summer camp. “I think we all knew that going into Summer League, the opportunity that we had as far as all the young guys having the chance to really play this year. So I just take every single day and every single opportunity I’m handed as a blessing, and I want to attack everything.
“I started off with Summer League and now the summer and going to training camp and things like that. So it’s taking advantage of opportunity. You know, that’s all you ask for as a young guy in the NBA is the opportunity to play and get to showcase what you can do.”
Same with Noah Clowney, who just turned 20 and is still among the 25 or so youngest players in the league.
“I look at it as a positive. I look for the best in every situation,” the big man Noah Clowney told Lewis at the same camp. “Yeah, we’re young, so you know, we look at our roster and people think we can’t compete. That don’t mean we’re supposed to go out there and lay down.
“So I think we’re young, we can grow together, and we can build something. And that’s the goal.”
At the moment, the Nets are a little older than they were before the Mikal Bridges, going from the seventh youngest team at the close of last season to 10th now. That’s because, putting aside the draft haul they got from the Knicks, the players they got in that deal are older than the ones they gave up. Bridges is seven years younger than Bojan Bogdanovic while Keita Bates-Diop and Shake Milton are about the same age. Of course, that could change at a moment’s notice with the Nets still marketing Cam Johnson, who’s 28, and Dorian Finney-Smith, who’s 31. They reportedly want more than the market is currently offering.
But as the players said, the opportunity to play big minutes is much greater now. Both Wilson and Clowney spent most of last season in the G League with Long Island. This year, after both played well in the Summer League — Wilson winning the MVP, they’re expected to have roles in the Brooklyn rotation.
Wilson, who won a national championship at Kansas as a junior and was a consensus All-American as a junior, sees the MVP award as another milestone he can build on.
“I think everything in life, accomplishments are always good to go for,” Wilson said. “And once you get them, you just have to set new ones.
“You can never get complacent with where things are. And that’s where I’m at. I’m just shooting for more goals, shooting for more achievements. Now that I’m here back in town, you have the opportunity to get in the gym every single day and get better. So you know, when the time comes, that you’re prepared.”
As Lewis writes, shooting is the operative word. When Wilson declared for the Draft, he had two issues, one he couldn’t do anything about; his age, and the other something he could his long-range shooting. The Nets believed that he could improve his shooting and were happy he was available at No. 51.
Since then, he’s proven the Nets were correct. Wilson shot just 31.6%on 3-pointers at Kansas, 27.5% for Long Island and 32.4% for Brooklyn. But once he got to Las Vegas, he exploded, hitting 55.0%. Can he keep it up? He thinks the hard work will pay off.
“I would say the main thing is first just getting the reps in. If you don’t get the gym you know, it’s not going to happen,” Wilson said. “A lot of the times, you want to have good misses if you’re gonna miss. So shooting everything long, right? I think nothing short. But like I said, it’s having the confidence in your shot, I feel like that’s the main thing. If you’re coming off a screen or you’re getting a pass, and in your mind you know it’s going in already, that’s the main part.”
Clowney also had a good summer league, continuing his end-of-season improvements, shooting 39.1% from deep and getting rave reviews for his rim protection. Perhaps the biggest winner of the summer was Keon Johnson who went from a two-way contract to a two-year non-guaranteed $4.5 million deal.
“I feel like it’s a staple to the work I’ve been putting in over the past couple of years,” Johnson said. “I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs, pretty much since I’ve been drafted, and I just kind of held my hat on just keep putting the work in, and hopefully one day my number will get called, and I’ll have the opportunity like I am now.”
Any rebuild needs a number of things to succeed: A stash of draft picks? The Nets have more firsts — 16 picks and a swap over next seven drafts — than even the Thunder. A lot of cap space? Bobby Marks tweeted yesterday that the Nets are the only NBA team that will have “significant cap space” next July. Good young prospects with a chance at development? The kids will tell you they’re all right.
Jalen Wilson ready to seize role on rebuilding Nets squad - Brian Lewis - New York Post
Young Nets up for opportunity to prove themselves - Brian Lewis - New York Post
Nets’ Noah Clowney believes team’s youth can be a positive ($) - Evan Barnes - Newsday
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