BREAKING: Brooklyn Nets rookie sensation Egor Demin facing SURPRISE injury hurdle | Return timeline?

BREAKING: Brooklyn Nets rookie sensation Egor Demin facing SURPRISE injury hurdle | Return timeline?

Coming up, Jagor Deman suffers an injury setback entering the start of NET’s training camp. What is his timeline and will he be ready for the season opener? I’ll answer that after this. [Music] You are Locked on Nets, your daily Brooklyn Nets podcast, part of the Locked Onet. Your team every day. Welcome in to the Lockdown Nets podcast right here on the Locked on Podcast Network. It’s your team, the Brooklyn Nets, every single day. I’m Eric Slater, Brooklyn Nets be reporter for clutchpoints.com. Thank you for making me your first listen of the day. The show is 100% free on all those great platforms. And on today’s show, I’m going to be reacting to some Jay Gordyman injury news. I’ll also dive into some comments we got from Brooklyn’s top pick about his rookie season and other news and notes from media day. But we had next media day yesterday at HSS training center in Brooklyn. I was on hand spoke to all of the players and Shawn Marks and Jordy Fernandez. And a lot of what was said was to be expected. There were some surprises. The biggest of which was this Jaor Deman injury news. And Shawn Marks revealed that Jaor has been tending to a plantar fascia tear that started to become an issue sometime after summer league. We know Jaor made the four appearances in Las Vegas and looked healthy and you know didn’t look like he had any issues there but sometime after that this cropped up and began an issue and Sean said that Jaor has been limited you know following summer league and that he hasn’t had the summer that he necessarily was hoping for. So, this is something where, you know, it looks like he’s been dealing with this and it’s going to be something the Nets have to manage, you know, through the beginning of training camp. And here’s what Sean said about it exactly. So, there’s nothing left in translation. I asked him about the timetable and whether Jaor is going to be ready for the season opener. And he said he’ll be limited for the first part of camp and what he’s going to be doing, but hopefully there’s a buildup through the first couple of weeks and then he gets out there, but we have no issues with thinking that he’s going to miss the start of the season or anything like that. So there you have it. As of now, you know, from Shawn Marx, Jaor is expected to be ready for the start of the regular season. And for those of you who don’t know, the planter fascia, it’s a foot injury. The, you know, the planter fascia is a band of tissue. It’s located on the bottom of your foot and it connects your heelbone to the toes. You know, you guys have probably heard of plantar fasciitis. This is a planter fascia tear. And you know, from what I’ve read online, I’m not a doctor, but the healing timeline for a tear seems like it can range from several weeks to several months depending on its severity. And based on the comments from Shawn and Jagor, this doesn’t appear to be that significant of a tear given that Shawn said that he’s going to be ready for the start of the regular season. But if there’s one thing that I’ve learned on the Nets beat, it’s to take any Nets injury updates or timelines with a grain of salt. I’ve been through this with a lot of players. I’m not saying that this isn’t the case and Diego isn’t going to be ready for the start of the regular season, but you know, they have a tendency to downplay some of this stuff sometimes. So, we will see. And with what Sean said, I mean, the big thing that he said is hopefully there’s a buildup through the first couple of weeks. So, that means that, you know, Jagor is probably going to be limited for at least the first couple of weeks, which means that I’m not expecting him to play in the preseason opener, which is about 10 days away. And then you look at the season opener and it’s a month away. So, you know, if it’s something that he’s already been dealing with for, you know, extended period after summer league, which was, you know, in early July, you would think that he would be ready, you know, for the start of the regular season because that will be months at that point. And they’re not saying, you know, anything that would lead you to believe that this is a serious uh planter fascia tear and Mark setting that he’ll be ready for the start of the regular season. I mean, that obviously counts for something. So, we’ll see. It’s, you know, not ideal um for Diego to be dealing with this, but from what I know, this isn’t something that he’s dealt with in the past or has been like a reoccurring issue. And again, not a doctor, but from what I’ve read on planner fascia tears, uh they’re something that if they’re, you know, treated correctly don’t, you know, have like necessarily like a a high rate or definite, you know, thing to be reoccurring, you know, and you’re going to have to deal with moving on. And what Jaor had to say about it, he downplayed it. He said, “Well, the injury itself, I’m assuming it’s not that big of a deal at this point, but it’s something that comes with volume over time. It wasn’t like a moment where I was like, oh, that’s when it happened.” You know, I’m not a doctor, so it’s hard for me to even tell what’s going on with it. So, for me, it’s just important to stay present. I’m trying to focus on whatever plan I have from the physicians and whatever timing I have from then. So, you know, Jaor, smart kid, you know, seems to have a good head head on his shoulders obviously and, you know, I don’t think that this planter fascia tear will be, you know, a huge story or that big of a deal in the long run, but in the short term, it’s something to monitor and it’s something that, you know, even if Shawn Marks doesn’t says that he’s going to be ready for the start of the regular season, we’re going to have to monitor and see how we develop throughout training camp. So, I have plenty of updates on that. But we also had other comments from Jaor that I thought were interesting and I thought were encouraging. And um you know one of them was, you know, you look at Jaor’s strengths, his weaknesses. We talked about his expectations numerous times going into this rookie season. And you know, I asked Jaor at media day yesterday what he felt was his I asked all the rookies what they felt their main growth areas were like where they had the most room to improve, what they were going to be focusing on, and how they were going to be attacking uh those weaknesses, you know, in offseason work and into the season. I thought, interestingly enough, Jaor said the the top thing that he said was playing through contact and playing with physicality and, you know, being ready to handle that and, you know, deliver force to people in the NBA. And I thought that that was really encouraging to hear because I think, you know, if you’ve seen Jaor play, these strengths are apparent. Like he has incredible size at 69. He’s regard regarded as the best passer in the draft. He’s just an elite court mapper. Can manipulate defenses, sees openings, can make passes that other people can’t. And at his size, you know, while he’s not an elite ball handler, for a guy who’s 69, like he does have, you know, fluid ball handling ability. even if it’s not like the um even if he doesn’t have the most shake, he doesn’t have the most separation and all those things, he can handle the ball. The thing that he struggled with a lot is playing through contact. And you watch this at BYU when he drove to the basket. You know, he doesn’t have an elite first step. And with that, if you don’t have an elite first step, you kind of have to be able to get into people, use physicality to get to the rim. And Jaor wasn’t necessarily able to do that. He was a guy who got bumped off of his spot a lot. I think that lack of physicality obviously made it difficult for him to finish up and through the rim because he’s not even though he’s 69, he’s not an above the rim finisher. He’s a guy who finished below the rim, you know, the majority of the time. So, if that’s the case, playing through contacts important. Also, ball handling. We’ve heard about his struggles and seen at summer league, his struggles handling ball pressure. And I talked to Net Summer League head coach Steve Hzel about that and you know asked him at summer league why Jagger was spending so much time off the ball and whether that was by design or whether that was just kind of the way things were playing out. And Hzel said that it was the way that things were playing out and they wanted him to do a little bit more things on the ball. But at this point he needs to, you know, improve his physicality, improves improve his strength to be able to hold NBA level defenders who are, you know, trying to pressure him, hold them off and be able to get comfortably into sets. So playing through contact, you know, physicality, adding strength, that is the number one thing that I, you know, feel like should be the emphasis for Jaor entering the rookie season. Obviously, there’s a lot of skill work and on the court things that are, you know, go without saying, but this is going to be the baseline for everything because if Jagor can’t play through contact, if he can’t handle the physicality, that’s really going to expose all of his weaknesses and it’s not going to allow him to, you know, accentuate his strengths or let those strengths shine. So this, you know, base, the strength, the physicality, all of that is going to be the base. And Jaor, you know, I’m really happy that that was the first thing that he said when I asked for his main growth area because I think that that’s correct. And it seems in lock step with what the what the Nets coaches have been saying. And you know, what does that look like? Adding strength, playing through physicality, eating a lot. You know, you got to eat a lot. You got to lift a lot. Obviously, you need to learn how to on the court play with physicality and play. You know, there’s there’s technique to that. But the first step is, you know, throwing that weight on. Jagor’s like 69, 200 pounds right now. He’s going to need to add to that, you know, slight frame so far. But we talked to him and, you know, we asked him about Brooklyn and living in Brooklyn and what does he like so far. And he said that, you know, he’s a foodie. He likes to eat and he said that he’s found a lot of spots. So my advice to Jaor and I’m sure the Net’s coach’s advice would be eat as much of that stuff as possible and just live in the weight room. And Jaor is a smart kid and it seems like that’s the way that he’s approaching this. So I think that’s a real positive. the injury setback news is a negative, but it doesn’t seem like it’s something that’s necessarily going to hamper him long term, you know, into the season for the foreseeable future. So, we will see with that, but it does mean that other Nets point guards are going to have added reps early in training camp and that is obviously going to be the rookies, uh, Ben Saraf and Nolan Troy. So, what am I hearing about those guys? What are my expectations for them stepping into roles? I’ll touch on all that when they continue locked on Nets after a quick break. But before that, want to tell you about our friends over at FanDuel. The NFL season is here and FanDuel is making sure you’re ready for kickoff with a can’tmiss offer. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Guys, FanDuel fits however you like to bet. Player props, building a same game parlay or even jumping in live as the action unfolds. It makes every game more exciting. whether you’re watching your team or just keeping an eye on your fantasy lineup. It’s quick, easy, and the best way to add a little more energy to Sundays. So, are you ready to play? Download the FanDuel app now by visiting fanuel.com to get started. That’s fuel.com to place your first $5 bet. Coming back from the break on today’s Locked on Nets episode, talking about Jagorman’s injury and everything else we heard at Nets media day and Dman is going to be limited for the start of training camp. probably not going to miss the season opener, but is going to miss probably the preseason opener, which is going to open reps in what is obviously an extremely crowded Nets backcourt featuring uh the rookies with Jagor, Ben Saraf, and Nolan Troy, also Cam Thomas, Kobe Buffkin, all these guys. But, you know, Nolan Troy and Ben Saraf are the other true point guards on this roster. We talked to Kobe Buffkin. He said that he envisions himself more as a combo guard. I think with all the point guards that the Nets have that he’ll probably spend time at that position. So I’d expect, you know, Nolan Troy and Ben Sarath to get added reps at the start of training camp. And Ben Sarath was a big topic of conversation at Netsinia day. We heard from several players. We heard comments from Shawn Marx. All of which talked about how well Sarra has played and they were really raving about what he’s been able to do during these open runs. And you know, I posted that on Twitter. Some Nets fans uh you know, were excited about it. There was obviously, you know, a large Saraf contingent of people, you know, from his home country that were really excited about it. So, we’ll see. But, you know, am I surprised to be hearing this? Like, I’m not all that surprised. You know, looking at Saraf’s game, I’ve spoken about it. I’ve said I I’ve thought that he’s going to be a guy who will spend some time in the G-League probably to open the season. So, I’m not, you know, no rookie I don’t think is going to be like a net positive player in the NBA, but I don’t necessarily think Sarra or Chore really are like that built to, you know, be, you know, to have an easy transition into the NBA. But despite that, I’m not too surprised to hear about him showing flashes and open runs because if you’ve seen Saraf play, you know, he has a flashy game. He has, you know, if you listen to the Net Scout series when the scouts were talking about him in their meetings, uh, one of them said that he has a flare for the game. And I think that that’s a good a good way to describe him. You know, he has a really nice handle at his size. He has a lot of crafty moves, whether crossovers or spin moves getting to the basket. And he does play the game with a little bit of flare. So, when you’re playing in open runs, you know, we’ve all done it. Like, that’s a good way to get noticed. And, you know, those types of plays obviously draw some oo and they draw recognition. And we had, you know, Michael Porter Jr., Terrence man spoke about, you know, Sarra showing flashes. Shawn Marks also alluded to him playing well. So, with Jagor being limited at the start of camp, we’ll see. And, you know, it it kind of is you raised a question in my mind of who is better suited, you know, to step in early in the season, you know, not that Jagor is going to miss time, but just as a thought process between Ben Saraf and Nolan Troy because they are the two guys behind Jorman. And I’ve thought Troy, you know, in the past just because like of the two, like neither of them are good shooters, but Saraf I think is a worse shooter. So I think that could make things more difficult for him. But, you know, if you’re talking about all three of these point guards from a size perspective, Sarra has like the most NBA built, you NBA ready body right now. He’s 66 with a 68 wingspan. So he has just incredible size and length for his ball handling ability and what he’s able to do in that regard. and he’s also 200 lb. So, he’s a little bit of a stockier guy at his size as opposed to guys like Gman and Troy who are a little bit slighter. So, he may be able to match the physicality of the NBA game better than these other two Nets rookie point guards. But, I will say, you know, the jump shot, he’s never really looked like even like a decent jump shooter at this point in his career. So, I think that that will present uh challenges for him and make the advantage creation a little bit more difficult for him at the NBA level against better NBA level defenders. But it is also something where you could say he’ll have better spacing at the NBA level. He’ll have better structure. But um you know it’s there’s a lot of different ways that you could look at it. I think Sarra playing well in these open runs is interesting. I do think that you know maybe he’s a guy who could step in and start the season in Brooklyn. I do think he’s probably going to be in the G-League if I had to guess. But we don’t know if he comes out and he takes advantage of these added opportunities and added reps that he’ll have early in camp. Maybe he’s in, you know, Brooklyn and some other guys are in Long Island. So we’ll see. But I am encouraged to hear that Saras’s playing well and in Troy’s case also going to get an opportunity and I think that you know it’ll be exciting to see what he can do. I’ve outlined you know what I expect from Troy and I expect him his speed to be on full display. I think he’ll get out in transition. We’ve heard so much about how the Nets want to play and I think that that is something like you’re talking about Troy and his skill set. I do think it really, you know, meshes with how the Nets want to play in the half court, in inch, and in transition because obviously the Nets want to play fast. They want to play in the transition games. They want to get up a lot of shots. And that one that was one of Troy’s biggest strengths, you know, at the pro level in France and at his other stops was in transition. He’s obviously a blur, regarded as one of the fastest players in the draft. And he finished and, you know, scored at a very efficient clip in transition last season. And so that obviously tailors itself to the Nets game as does the advantage creation, the ability to get downhill, touch the paint, get the ball in rotation, create catch and shoot threes. But I would say that, you know, he’s not a good shooter either. You know, none of these guys shot well last season. And unlike Saraf, he is, you know, slighter. He’s 6’4, you know, 66 wingspan or 68 wingspan, something like that. So, you know, good size and length also, but is a little bit shorter. And, you know, came in at 175 uh weight at the combine. to a little bit of a slighter frame that I think will make it more difficult for him to get downhill, finish at the rim and things along those lines because like um you know Dilman and Sarra, he is also a below the rim player, but he’s going to get added reps. Saraf’s going to get added reps, but right now Sarra is the player that is drawing the most buzz and he’s going to get more opportunities in Net’s training camp early on and probably in the Net’s first preseason game. So, we’ll have, you know, a lot more to hear about him obviously and a lot more to break down with him. But we have one more injury update that I did think was significant and could say something about the Nets roster plan. So, who was it? What does it mean? I’ll get into all that when I close out Locked on Nets after a quick break. Guys, when I found out Ski was making underwear for men, I was intrigued. 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Coming back from the break, closing out today’s Locked on Nets episode talking about all the biggest news and notes from Brooklyn’s media day yesterday. And we had a couple other injury updates. The first of which was Drake Pal who has been dealing with tendinopathy in his knee. Did not play in summer league and he is not playing five on five yet. But Shawn Marks did say that he hopes that Pal will be ready to play preseason games. So we’ll see. That’s obviously an ambiguous injury update. But if Shawn’s hoping that he’s ready to play pre uh play preseason games if he hasn’t played five on five, I wouldn’t expect him to be ready for the Nets preseason opener which is about 10 days away. But they do have their games in Macau, China, and then they close it out against the Toronto Raptors. So, we’ll see. You know, I think that uh you know, Drake, it doesn’t seem to be too serious of an injury at this point, like no structural damage to his knee, but it’s clearly something that he’s been managing for an extended period. So, we’ll have to wait for some more updates on that. But the other noteworthy injury update was Haywood Highmith, who the Nets obviously acquired in that trade with the Miami Heat. got a second round pick alongside him in what was a salary dump. But Haywood has been dealing with a meniscus injury and had surgery on his meniscus on August 8th right before he was acquired by the Nets. But he told us at media day that he expects to be ready for the start of the regular season. And that was a surprise based on what Haywood’s timeline was expected to be before this. I said he had that surgery on August 8th and the heat said at that point that he was going to be sidelined for 8 to 10 weeks and 10 weeks the high end of that timeline would put him out you know right until before opening night like a few days before the Nets open the season on October 22nd in Charlotte and usually with these injuries even if like that timeline is 10 weeks players take a little bit of time to ramp up after that especially you know with the Nets we’ve heard about the ramp up with all these different players so you know Haywood said despite that timeline putting him right up to opening night and right before it that he expects to be ready for that season opener and that’s the plan right now and I think that is significant because I always thought that the Nets were going to hold on to Haywood into the season and that he would be a part of the roster to start the year after that trade but you know the Nets do have three partially or non-G guaranteed players in Jaylen Wilson, Drew Timmy and Tyrese Martin and for any of those guys to make the roster they would have to you know wave the Nets would have to wave a guaranteed player because they have 15 guaranteed standard contracts, which is the most that you’re allowed to carry during the regular season. So, if any of those three non-g guaranteed guys were to make it, then that’s going to have to wave somebody. And who are the options? You know, I pointed to Dariq Whitehead could maybe be an option, although I felt it was unlikely. And the other guy was Haywood Highwmith. If he was not, you know, if the injury was not coming along in the way that maybe the Nets had hoped and they didn’t think that he was going to be ready for the regular season, I could see him in that scenario being waved. But this pretty much kills that and this pretty much confirms that he’s probably going to be on the roster into the regular season. And you know, I think that makes sense because if he’s a guy who is ready to play and that meniscus injury is right and he can return and play well, he’s a guy who’s on a $5.9 million expiring contract. And if he plays well as part of this rotation, I would expect the Nets to probably be able to flip him for value at the deadline if they want to. you know, they could also obviously extend him, but he’s a guy who I could see having some value whether to the Nets or to another team moving forward because he’s a player who, you know, has been a rotation player for a playoff caliber team for several years. He’s a guy who played in the finals and in the Eastern Conference finals and in high leverage playoff games and other comments that Haywood gave to us, you know, really just made it clear that he’s, you know, going to be a part of this and that he’s invested in this at least, you know, for the start of the regular season. and he said, you know, stepping in in a leadership role. And I think that that’s something that, you know, it gets talked about a lot with some of these other guys that the Nets have. But the Nets now have three veterans in Michael Porter Jr., Terrence Man, and Haywood Highmith who have played, you know, high leverage playoff basketball like Porter Jr. won a championship. Haywood Highmith won an Eastern Conference championship both as members of the rotation. Terrence man has played in high play, you know, high leverage playoff games and had huge, you know, performances in elimination games. So, I don’t think that that, you know, can be undervalued. I think that that is important for a Nets team that has the biggest, you know, class of rookie first round picks in NBA history. And then also talking about Haywood, like we know the skill set. We know what he’s done in the past. He’s been a 3 and D guy. He’s been a guy, you know, former D2 player who really had to scrap and claw for everything that he’s gotten in the NBA and has done just a great job of that up to this point. And a lot of that was on the defensive end of the floor. And we know that Jordi Fernandez wants this team to have his a defensive identity. He wants them to guard 94 feet. That’s things that we saw, you know, were an emphasis last season. And players like Dennis Shruder, like Zire Williamson, like Keon Johnson really bought into that. And it seems like Haywood is going to be another one of those guys. He said he’s already had conversations with Jordy about, you know, what the importance of defense is going to be to what Jordy wants to do. and Haywood’s spoken with him about how he feels he can accentuate that and really drive that point home with these Nets rookies. You know, he said that I’ve guarded, you know, some of the best players in the NBA and I’ve pressured them 94 feet and I think that I’ve done a good job of that. He thinks that he has a lot to impart on these younger Nets guys in terms of mindset, in terms of how you approach things on that end of the floor. And he als he’s he’s also said that he’s excited to, you know, show what he can do in other regards. So those comments, the, you know, injury timeline from Haywood expecting to be ready or planning to be ready for the season opener, all to me confirms that he’s going to be a part of this Net’s team. And, you know, I’m excited to see what he can do with this new situation. But that does it for this episode of Lockdown Nets. Hope you guys really enjoyed the show. I have more updates from training camp coming up all throughout the week. But if you do not already, make sure to subscribe to Locked on Nets on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast, whether Apple Podcast or Spotify. If you enjoy the show, take a second, smash that like button, leave a comment. Anything you can do to engage is much appreciated. But I’ll be at Nets practice tomorrow. We’ll have more updates and more to talk to you guys about when I’m back tomorrow talking more Brooklyn Nets basketball.

Erik Slater breaks down the top news from Brooklyn Nets media day, including Egor Demin’s surprise injury. He outlines when Demin could return and what players will receive added opportunities during his absence.

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