With six picks (so far), are Brooklyn Nets trying to monopolize the 2025 NBA Draft?
Rob Kinnan-USA TODAY Sports
The 2025 NBA Draft is seen as historic and deep and the Nets now have six picks — four firsts and two seconds — following their big moves. The NBA’s 2025 Draft is viewed as more than good. It is viewed as historic and deep with solid prospects filling many of the 60 picks. There’s Cooper Flagg, the do-everything 6’8” forward out of Duke, of course, but also Rutgers’ two 5-star recruits, Ace Bailey, another 6’8” forward, and Dylan Harper, a 6’5” combo guard: Nolan Troare, the latest French sensation, also a 6’5” combo guard. Then, there’s fast-rising 6’4” Baylor shooting guard V.J. Edgecombe. and 7’2” big Khaman Maluach out of Duke and the NBA’s Basketball Africa League.
After a mediocre draft last month, NBA GMs and scouts have been picking over the possibilities and as of this moment, no NBA team is in better shape than the Brooklyn Nets. Sean Marks & co. currently have six picks: four firsts and two seconds. And one of those seconds, the Nets own, could have value far exceeding what second round picks bring.
Is it fair to say that with a little bit of luck Brooklyn could control the 2025 Draft? Yes.
Here’s how Nets got there. Brooklyn went into the last week of June with two firsts, their own which would have to be swapped with the Houston Rockets, part of the original James Harden trade, and the Phoenix Suns’ unprotected first. They also had the Miami Heat’s second (protected top 37.) Not bad but neither first round pick could remotely be considered lottery material. The Nets might have made it into the lottery, but they’d have to turn the pick over to Houston. And while the Suns got swept in the first round, they still won 49 games in the regular season in 2023-24 and still have their “Big Three” in place for 2025.
Then, in a series of two stunning trades, the Nets doubled the number of first rounders and in a bit of a stealthy move, got back their own second rounder.
We don’t know the sequence of events but the Rockets trade was the first one announced. So let’s start there.
The big move was “extinguishing” Houston’s swap rights in 2025 (as well as re-acquiring their 2026 first pick, also originally part of the Harden trade.) In return, the Nets agreed to swap their own first-round pick or the Thunder’s first-round pick, whichever is better, for Phoenix’s first-round pick. With OKC, Houston and Phoenix all expected to be playoff teams, the re-sort shouldn’t matter much. The Nets also gave up the 2027 unprotected Suns first and gave Houston the swap rights to the Suns pick in 2029.
The Nets could then move onto the full rebuild, knowing that their first rounder in June wouldn’t be encumbered by any swap rights. And that’s what they did by trading Mikal Bridges to New York. As any sentient Nets fan knows by know, the Nets got the Knicks to give them their own firsts in 2025, 2027, 2029 and 2031 as well as the Bucks lightly protected (1-4) first in 2025. That increased the Nets first round take in 2025 to four firsts: their own, the Knicks, the Bucks and the Suns, the latter two somewhat encumbered but still first rounders. The only team close to the Nets is the Thunder (who else?) who have three firsts and a second. The Spurs and Magic also have two firsts.
Buried deep in the news, though, was this important point: The Nets also got the Knicks to return their own 2025 second. Brooklyn had given it up in 2018 as part of the Jeremy Lin trade with the Hawks. Then, in 2022, the Knicks acquired the pick as part of the Kevin Knox-for-Cam Reddish trade. With the Nets tanking — um, rebuilding — that pick will likely be in high in the second round in a deep draft. The last time the Nets had a pick at the top of the second round, a Knick pick they acquired from the 76ers, they took Nic Claxton at No. 31
So again as of now, is that the Nets could have as many as six picks in an historic draft. The only uncertainty is whether the Heat pick will transfer. If it’s in the top 37, Miami keeps it. If not, it goes to Brooklyn.
Could the stash be expanded. The Nets are reportedly engaged with multiple teams on both Cam Johnson and Dorian Finney-Smith. They’ll surely want draft compensation there as well. Will another team be willing to give up 2025 assets — a first, a second, swap rights — for a veteran who could help them win? The Knicks certainly believed that.
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