GAME-CHANGER: Danny Wolf SPARKS Brooklyn Nets While Emerging As FAN FAVORITE | Bright Future Ahead?

GAME-CHANGER: Danny Wolf SPARKS Brooklyn Nets While Emerging As FAN FAVORITE | Bright Future Ahead?

On today’s show, Danny Wolf is emerging as a Nets fan favorite after cracking the team’s rotation. I’ll tell you why Wolfe’s hot start bodess well for his long-term outlook and how his play style exemplifies Brooklyn’s vision moving forward. All that more on today’s Locked on Nets episode right now. [Music] You are Locked on Nets, your daily Brooklyn Nets podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network. your team every day. Welcome in to Locked On Nets right here on the Locked On Podcast Network. Now the number one sports podcast network. It’s your team, the Brooklyn Nets every single day. I’m Eric Slater, Brooklyn reporter for clutchpoints.com. Thank you for making me your first listen of the day. This show is 100% free on all those great platforms. Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. If you want to be right in the middle of the action this season, visit fanuel.com and place your NFL live bets all season long. And Nets fans, big announcement from lockdown this week. We are rolling out access to something called the Everydayer Club, a subscription service that will give you guys access to adree content and bonus Nets content. And if you are a true diehard Nets fan, the Everydayer All Access tier is built for you. You’ll get one-on-one texting access with me, all access episodes, an exclusive newsletter, Zoom calls with me to ask me questions, and more film reviews, all that good stuff. So, head to lockdownnetss.supcast.com to join the Everydayer program and unlock all access. Again, that’s lockdowns.supcast.com. The link to that show is below in the show notes, also in the comments. But on today’s episode, got Lucas Kaplan joining the show. We’re going to talk about Danny Wolf’s hot start, what has surprised us, what hasn’t, and how we think he fits in moving forward. All right, joining the show now, we got Lucas Kaplan’s second straight day. And that is because Lucas, Danny Wolf, has burst onto the scene in this Net’s rotation. And we got to get into him because he has become a fan favorite in this short amount of time these last five or six games since he’s entered the rotation. But it’s been interesting with Danny early on because, you know, obviously the rookies were the number one story line entering the season as was the Nets draft position. But Danny was that one guy who we didn’t see in the Nets rotation. He was kind of like this mystery man. What was he going to be once he got in? We went a couple of months or about a month without him playing and the Nets finally bring him up and he has completely looked apart pretty much. He’s ex It’s exceeded expectations I would say actually by leaps and bounds over these last five games. Danny’s at 12.8 points, 5.6 rebounds, 2.6 assists, 47% from the field, 46% from three. Nets have been really good when he’s played. He has a plus 5.1 net rating. And frankly, he’s just hasn’t looked overwhelmed on either end. And I think that that’s been very notable for a player who there were major questions about on both sides of the ball. I mean, mainly defensively, you know, I think there were a lot of questions about would he be able to hold up there. I think he’s done a really good job relative to expectations. And then offensively, while he was so effective playing this unorthodox role for Michigan last season, there were questions like, would his, you know, athleticism hold up at the NBA level? Would he be able to create space and create shots? And he’s really done all those things and answered all of those questions. So, when you look at what Danny’s been able to do, has this surprised you or has this kind of been like you thought that he’d be able to do some of this stuff? I wouldn’t say I’m too surprised, honestly. I think I I might come across early in this episode like I’m raining on the parade, but he’s shooting 46% from three since they called him up. And I said it before and I’ll say it again. And he’s also I think he’s missed one free throw in total or something like that. Listen, if he shoots 45% from three and 90% from the line, he’s going to be pretty good. Um, and so that is not surprising to me because it’s a small sample, but I think that’s where honestly a lot of the offensive impact has come from now. Like he’s shown some really good things and there’s a lot to be excited about, but I’m not necessarily surprised that he’s been good considering it seems like he’s on a little bit of a jump shooting heater. Also, their defense is, you know, again, such a small sample, 20 points per 100 better with him on the floor. We’ll see how that manifests over time. You don’t think that’s going to hold up? You don’t think that number will hold steady throughout the season? He’s probably a benefit of not being around for that, you know, alltime horrific start to the season. Yeah. Yeah. We’ll get into that. But yeah, the three-point shooting, that was one of the first things that I was going to hit on because that has been the driving factor behind his early offensive success. Now, he’s shown other things. And is he going to shoot 46% from three on high volume for, you know, the whole season? No. But I do think that it’s a positive because like Danny had a really nice shooting stroke obviously at Michigan in terms of how it looked and people thought that it would translate. But it was no guarantee because across college I mean he was low30s from three over three college seasons and he comes in now and I thought that the three-point shooting was going to be a big swing skill for Danny because we had the questions of would he be a center, would he be a power forward? Some people even said say that he’s a wing or like this point forward and if he’s not able to shoot well from three like some of the other guys we’ve talked about like Aorman or whoever else whoever else you want to say that really limits what you can do positionally with him and him being able to shoot at this level while taking the step back you know to the NBA from the college three to the NBA three. It’s been a major positive to me just because of the fact also though that the confidence like he’s taking some really tough threes. I mean, like there’s some threes that he’s hitting that are, you know, late shot clock, catch and shoot threes, three or four feet behind the three-point line with a contest and he’s hitting up and I’m like, “Oh, wow.” If he’s spacing the floor at that level, that really changes what you can do with him offensively. His average three-point shot distance per PVP stats is 26 1/2 ft. The line is like 22 in the corners and then like out to 24 something at the top of the arc. So, he’s spotting up way behind the arc. And you know, maybe we shouldn’t discount the possibility of being in an NBA system where they say, “Hey, if you catch it on the wing, you know, your first like and you can shoot it, shoot it.” And that can help him. And we’ve seen defenses respect it, which is most important. Like that highlight pass he had to Don in a four five pick and roll, which I’ll talk about more soon. You know, Dron hands him the ball, he kind of steps behind the screen and pump fakes. two guys lunge at him and then he like fake shot pass to Dron for an easy dunk and that’s all because defenses respect the shot. So it’s not I don’t want to give the impression that I think it’s blind luck but so far I just think a lot of his impact and why they’ve been so good in his minutes has a lot to do with you know three-point variance like opponents are shooting something like 12% worse from three when he’s on the court. So, we’ll see. But, and you you’re I’m sure you’re going to touch on this. I love how many different spots they’ve put him in. And we’ve already kind of seen flashes of how he can create offense in diverse ways. Yeah. You look at the way that he’s played thus far, the Nets haven’t used him at center at all. I mean, it’s been power forward and it’s been on the wing. It’s actually been a lot on the wing alongside um you Noah Clowney and then Dron Sharp or Nick Claxton. And we’ll get into when where whether we think that’s going to continue. what do we think that he is positionally? But yeah, it’s just the diverse, you know, the repertoire of things that he’s able to do offensively. You see him doing it in a variety of ways. And I think what you said about defense is respecting the shot is huge for him because he’s a guy that there were questions about is he going to be able to create advantages just like off the dribble or some of the ways that he did in college. And I think we’ve seen some of that. But if he is able to spot out to the perimeter and he can attack closeouts because he’s a guy that if you’re closing out and he’s able to get that step because he’s able to attack that close out, he’s shown that he has the court vision, he has like the in between game, he has just the offensive bag to be able to leverage those advantages into advantageous positions for himself or his teammates. So that is one really encouraging thing. And then as you said, the way all the ways that you’re able to play with him, whether you put him as in I don’t even know if you can call it inverted pick and roll because he’s like a big it’s a big big pick and roll, I guess you can say. Like we’ve seen him do that. We saw the play against the Bucks. They go high pick and roll and he gets the switch onto Miles Turner and he crosses him over and takes it to the rim and finishes over him. You can do that. You can run him as a screener. You can go, you know, short roll playmaker or pick and pop. You can go DHO hubs and split actions. all the things that the Nets have done with Nick Claxton, it just there’s so many ways that you can play with him. And I think that this goes back to something that I heard uh in the Nets scout series on YouTube. You know, one of their scouts who was the main guys responsible for looking at Danny was kind of giving his pitch for why he liked him and he said you don’t find a 7 foot connector like this in the front court in terms of the passing ability, the way you can keep the ball moving, the way that he can do certain things. And that’s just like seems to be a core principle as we know stemming from the draft is the Nets want guys at all of these spots who know how to keep the ball moving, know how to make passes and take advantage of, you know, advantages. And Danny has shown ability to do that and I think that he’s only going to get better the more reps that he gets. There are a couple of sequences that I uh that really illustrate this from the home stand. And now I’ll stop being like a downer or whatever. So against Charlotte, they kind of spam these handoff actions with Nick Claxton where Danny’s the ball handler and what we would call like a get action. So he throws it ahead to Nick and he can, you know, go get the handoff. Someone can set him a screen and he can go get the handoff. He can back cut and it’s against Ryan Caulk Brener who’s in drop coverage. And they basically just want Danny to, you know, have a runway to like eat up space and get downhill. and they kind of ran a bunch of variations of that for Danny in the fourth quarter. And they’ll also run a lot of four, five pick and roll with Danny and Dron. We’ve seen that a lot when there are bench units in the game. And I think that kind of should dispel some of the problems or issues Nets fans felt early in the season. It’s like, well, why is Danny in the G-League? You know, why is he not playing? What’s Jordy doing? the fact that he can come up and run these actions and like we saw him thrive in Michigan last year running four five pick and roll with Vlad Golden comes up to the NBA he gets to do that here seems like there’s a pretty solid plan in place for him then you know that they don’t win this game but the next day the next game against Utah at home or maybe that’s two games later against Utah at home uh and I wrote about this he’s playing I guess the four right like Nerkich is guarding Clax or whatever. And Utah switching everything else. The first play of the fourth quarter, the opening possession. Uh Ben Surov sets a cross screen down low for Danny to procure a switch for him. Danny catches it with Walter Clayton Jr. on him because Utah’s switching one through four. Then Utah realizes like, okay, well that’s not a great switch actually. And they overhelp in the paint. Danny skips it across the court. Uh Saraf like probably should have swung it, but he like misses a contested three. But point being, they trust him enough to not only throw him in like DHO actions, but they’re like, “Okay, let’s create a mismatch for you in the post.” So that’s the sort of stuff where I’m like, I see why they took him. I think there’s a plan in place. Like this is a really exciting start regardless of this heater from three. Yeah. And it’s just the versatility. And that’s frankly why some of the draft people that I spoke to were surprised that he fell to 27. Some weren’t. The kind of opinions on him were all over the board. I think because of worries about about his grounded athleticism, how all that would hold up. But if you just run down the list of things that he can do offensively, it’s just so many things like you switch a guard onto him, he can drive on them, he can post them up, you have a big on them, he can create advantage because he’s a little bit, you know, more fluid of a mover than some of those guys. As I said, you know, short roll, pick and roll, pick and pop, spacing out and being a force spacer and attacking closeouts. There’s just so many things that he can do offensively. seems like the only thing that maybe he can’t do is, you know, be a lob threat obviously because he’s pretty grounded. But I don’t know, we saw him, you know, throwing down poster dunks. Like he’s just such a fun player and I’m really glad that he’s in the rotation now because it just gives us another fun thing to talk about and I had an expectation that he was going to be one of, you know, the most fun guys because that’s what some draft people told me. They were like, “If I’m I heard multiple draft people say to me, I hope the Nets take him just for the fact that he’ll have a big role next season and it’ll be extremely fun to watch for you and for everybody else.” So, that’s been great. And we’ve seen like he’s turned into a fan favorite already. I mean, there are some plays where he gets the ball where it’s like the most anticipation in the building is for when Danny touches the ball. And in a net season that, you know, obviously there aren’t too much high expectations for playoffs and anything, it’s like another reason for people to come to the game. I mean, he gets cheers when he checks in and there’s not many other Nets players that you’re seeing that for, you know, in the early going. I mean, dude, he has a 22% usage rate. Like, he’s going to go out there and try stuff, which is awesome. And like, it’s so funny. I I I made this joke on on Saturday. Jaor Jman, who I love, has seemingly played 20 years of basketball from the day he came out the womb. And he’s never once thought like, “Let me cook this guy. Let me go get a bucket right quick.” Which is, you know, why he’s probably in the NBA because of his great self-awareness. And Saraf can get like that at times. And Drake has like a 13% usage rate. And then here comes big old Danny Wolf like every time he touches it like, “Let me let me go get a bucket real quick. Let me let me do something.” which is just nice to see. And it kind of makes it it seems silly in retrospect that when the Nets took him that there was he kind of got lumped in with like, oh well, why’ they take all the same skill set? Like it’s it’s redundant. Like maybe you can say that for the three other guards, but definitely not Danny. Yeah, he’s it’s definitely different just because of the fact that he can do so many different things positionally. And I think that that opens up a lot of possibilities. And I think that not Danny by himself, but the overall front court vision and overall vision the Nets have a moving forward. I think some of that is driving success right now in the short term and I think it’s going to be a big reason why the Nets could have success in the long term. So what are we seeing from that front court vision and how does Danny fit in moving forward? We’ll get into all that and we continue locked on Nets after a quick break. Guys, NFL Sundays move fast. One big play and all of the sudden everything feels different. That’s what makes live betting with FanDuel so exciting. You’re not just watching the game, you’re reacting to it in real time. With FanDuel, you can place bets as the action unfolds. Every drive, every momentum swing, every highlight moment. Live betting is best when the game starts to shift, a receiver gets hot, a defense tightens up, or the momentum flips after a turnover. FanDuel lets you jump into the moment. 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You know, Danny posting this crazy usage rate and coming in and clearly so many plays where he says, “Let me cook this guy. Like, let me go.” And I think that just bodess well for him moving forward because of the confidence that we’re seeing him play with. Like Danny was down in the G-League. He came up to the NBA and immediately like in the blink of an eye, he’s just like trying to do everything he can. He has no fear whatsoever. And that’s a positive of the Net situation because they’re tanking. They can let these guys experiment. You don’t have to worry too much about it. But Danny looks like a confident player. He looks like a player who’s sure of himself. Whereas, you know, and this is isn’t necessarily as much a knock on Jaor right now. Like there’s a lot of plays where Jaor and Saraf and some of these other guys don’t look as sure of themselves and they’re two years younger than Danny. So that’s to be expected. But Danny’s coming in and like will he make some turnovers and bad plays once in a while? Sure. But he looks like he’s know he knows what he wants to do a lot of the time and that shouldn’t be that that unexpected that he’s that confident because he’s a player who obviously killed it at Yale and then he had the confidence to say I’m going to go play point guard at Michigan and like if you don’t want to play me at point guard I’m not going to come here and they ended up saying yes and he did it and in an unorthodox way that a lot of people probably laughed at a little bit in the early going he turned into a first round pick for the Nets. That’s been really fun to see. But also what’s fun is just the way that the Nets are able to play and Danny Wolf I think being a little bit exemplary of a direction the Nets are heading in terms of you know we heard Shawn Mark say it after the draft sizable guys positionally versatile guys who keep the ball moving high field and we’re seeing the Nets play that way like I’ve spoken about it but their front court depth has been a big part of what is making them successful with that starting trio of MPJ Clowney and Claxton then you have Dron Sharp and Danny Wolf coming off the bench But Danny Wolf is probably the most interesting piece um at least outside of like MPJ being the top guy because he can fit in any of those positions. Like he can play the three, the four or the five. And I think that his ability to do that is something where if he does pan out for the Nets, you can play much bigger lineups in a lot of different ways. And I think that that presents probably the most intriguing, you know, advantage that he can create. Yeah. And I think that he well, first of all, he uh he turns he’s turning the ball over more than uh once in a while for now. Um but it’s nice that the Nets are letting him play through that. Again, like I’m sure we’ll get to this. The questions are are more so on the defensive side about him playing, you know, those varied positions, but I don’t know. When you look around the NBA these days and you see like high usage guys that put up a lot of points and even, you know, assists and rebounds but don’t necessarily generate good offense a lot of the time. You appreciate like more and more what the Nets are doing. And I don’t need to like say I don’t need to say too many examples, but like almost every lowerend team in the league, even some good teams have guys that eat up a lot of usage and their offense is like better with them off the court or other guys perform better when they’re off the court. And when you just look at like someone said this to me at summer league, this is a little bit of a tangent, but someone said we were talking about like one of those players, like a really high usage guy, not the most efficient score. He said, “Think about it. When is the last time an NBA team won a championship with a guy like that where it was almost the last really successful version of it was like an Allen Iverson where that team was so defensively slanted that he did everything he could to drag them to like a league average offense and him he himself wasn’t so efficient and blah blah blah. That’s not going to win in today’s NBA.” Uh, and when you think about it like that, it’s like you can see this vision for the Nets. You can see why they love Danny in conjunction with these other guys. Let’s just put the high feel, high skill guys at any position and it will lead to consistently good offensive decision-m and give us versatility, but like good, I guess, offensive principles in any lineup. Now, the turnovers and the defense, like Danny is gonna need to really, I guess, cut that fat off of his game. But, I don’t know, when you look around the league, I just I just like I I I’m starting to talk myself into more of their vision. And Danny, as you kind of said in the open, is a really good example of it. Yeah. And it’s a vision that I’m also starting to get behind just because of the fact that you see like there, you know, as we we’ve spoken about it on the pods before like the days of just like planting guys in the corner in playoff runs and them like not doing anything offensively and just spacing like those days are kind of behind. You need guys who are able to do a lot of things whether you know play on the second side, whether initiate offense like you need guys who can make decisions. I mean, you just watch the level of basketball that’s being played with the upper echelon of the NBA and in last year’s playoffs and you need a guys who can do multiple things, especially offensively. And Danny is that and I think that, you know, it’s just like we we there was all this conversation about all the point guards the Nets drafted. Would they be able to play together and do all these things and we’ve heard the Nets say like we believe in multiple ball handlers. Does that mean that I does that mean that I think that they think that, you know, Jaor, Nolan, and Ben can play together? No. But I believe in the vision that they’re presenting of like multiple ball handlers, multiple guys who can do different things. And Danny really takes that to another level because he presents that ball handler type guy at pretty much all five spots necessarily. Like he can play a point guard depending on who you put around him. He can play center depending on who you put around him. Power forward, wing, goes on and on. I mean, we’ve seen some of the lineups like some of my favorite lineups are probably going to be when they try to play him as like a point forward and you have lineups where you have like say Danny, Jaor, MPJ, Clowny, and Claxton. Like that’s going to be a fun lineup that’s really big and with a lot of length and are they like necessarily all good defenders? No. But they’re just big guys overall. And all that size, I think, can bother, you know, teams enough defensively sometimes. And then offensively, it’s going to be fun, man, because you have a lot of shooting, a lot of, you know, passing ability, and just a lot of different things that you can do and ways that you can play that will keep defenses on their toes. I do like that. Like, while they’re bad, they’re trying stuff like that is a quality. Like the Thunder really did that when they had those couple down years after the bubble playoff run. Just, you know, how big can these lineups get? how much, you know, foot speed or maybe even like true primary ball handling can we sacrifice before we get negative returns? And even if we get negative returns, so what, you know, we’re tanking anyway? And is this going to be like the exact core going forward? You know, the exact group of players? Probably not. But like there’s enough weird and varied like unique skill sets here where it’s a fun experiment to try. Like I don’t know how these like Danny and Noah and then you have MPJ all the way on one end and Nick Claxton trying to figure out hub offense. Like they’re all bringing something really unique to the table and truly like the only similarity they all have is that they’re like 610 611. Um, and it’s crazy that they’re like getting it done at and winning their minutes outright. I I don’t even really fully know how it’s happening, even after looking at like the advanced numbers and stuff, but it’s Yeah, it’s part of the reason they’re just much more enjoyable than last year. not only because of what you’re actually watching on the court over the 48 minutes, but because you can start to kind of see what feels like a glimpse into a future that doesn’t look so bad. Yeah, I completely agree. And I think that there also is an interesting question of, you know, what is Danny moving forward? Like what is his main spot? I mean, he I think the versatility is something that makes him special, but that was a question going in. got a little bit more clarity, I think, on it with the way that the Nets have played him the first five games, but that could be a product of some other stuff. So, what do we think Danny is positionally? How is he going to fit into this Net’s vision? We’ll get into all that when we close out Locked on Nets after a quick break. Guys, there’s no reason to let big wireless drain your wallet, especially during the holidays. And right now, Mint Mobile is running their best deal of the year. All of their unlimited plans are 50% off. That means you can lock in three, six, or even 12 months of unlimited premium wireless for just $15 a month. It’s the easiest way to take your overpriced phone bill and give it the full Scrooge treatment. And what makes this even better is how simple Mint makes the switch. No contracts, no nonsense, just real savings and real quality service. 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But at the end of the day, a lot of guys have a position that they play most of the time or like a spot that they’re most comfortable in. With Danny, there was the questions. Is that going to be center? Is that going to be power forward? They have him playing the wing a lot. Now, it seems like they are pretty keen on playing him on the wing and you could read into that and say like that’s the spot that they want him to be at moving forward. You could also say that they have Dron Sharp and Nick Claxton and both of those guys need to play. So, the natural spot for Danny to go right now is power forward or the wing. My take on this has been I had said that I thought that center might be his most natural position because I didn’t know whether he was going to be able to hang with um other guys, you know, other wings or power forwards defensively, you know, but in the early going, he’s looked pretty good on that end and he’s held up better than I’ve expected in terms of how his athleticism has looked compared to the rest of the NBA guys that he’s been playing against. And if that is the case, you could make an argument that having him on the wing, having him be a point forward and do some of these things creates even more mismatches than if you play him at the five. So, what is your opinion on that? And how do you feel like do you feel like the way the Nets are playing him right now is indicative of a plan for the long term? And what is your opinion on where you think he best fits? Um, uh, I I I think the jury is still out. I remember Noah Clowney played his whole rookie season with Long Island at the five just like Danny did. And you know, two years later, Noah’s essentially like a shooting guard. Um, but he’s also a weirdo. Uh, and I mean that in the best way. And then Noah did play those last that last month at the four and that’s, you know, he they moved him away from being a single big. So, basically, I think a little like I I’m convinced a little that this will be Danny’s long-term role. Not wholly, but it may be a little bit of a sign. And I think that I during summer league was like, “Oh, I could see him at the five. He’s just so big. Like, he he can use his length and size on defense better at the five, staying near the basket.” Um, I think what I was missing is like he’s good at creating layups for others. Uh he has 16 assists this year. 10 of them are for two-pointers. Like six of them are right at the rim. I know that’s super small sample size, but he’s good. Like when he has a big target down low, like Dron, like Clax, like you want him trying to create layups. And then on the other end, I do think he’s been pretty rough in space as to be expected and some of his better moments have been at the rim. But I’ll I’ll agree with you that I don’t think him in space has been so disqualifying that like you just can’t do it. You know what I mean? No, he struggled I think off the ball a good amount like trying to navigate some offball screens like Yeah. when they set flare screens when guys are curling off like when he’s having to move like that. I think that you do see um areas where that makes you concerned. I think on the ball he’s actually held up better than I’ve expected against some guys like he’s he’s had some ugly moments but like you just look at him overall and I think the athleticism like when you see him playing against NBA guys on offense or defense like you know Lorie Markin or Bobby Portoris or Miles Turner whoever like it hasn’t looked too drastic that like oh my god he’s so much slower and less athletic than these guys. I just don’t think that’s really been the case and I think that that bodess well for what he can do on both ends moving forward. I think sometimes we get too bogged down and like too specific and I’m definitely guilty of that. But like it’s it makes sense like he has all these offensive skills and handles and shoots like that has to imply some athleticism and some like anticipation skills. It makes sense that that would carry over a little bit on defense. I think again like switching and stuff pretty good. The Nets have also really switched a lot of action since he’s been up. I don’t think that’s just because of him, but it certainly helps him. And like yeah, like you said, like the tough stuff for him is really like, you know, he’s a weak side defender. There’s a drive. He has to zone up between two guys. He has to close out to one of them and like he’s kind of getting roasted on that stuff. And then like you said, some of the flare screens, but if he’s trying to just contain the ball, really not that bad. And like you can you can definitely work with that. And hey, it really, you know, this is where the nets are coming from. It helps to have size and length. And he certainly has that. And again, anticipation like he definitely understands what the guy across from him is trying to do, I think. Yeah. And overall, just closing out our thoughts on Danny. I think that, you know, he’s held up better than I thought athletically, and I think that that gives him a lot of ability to play some of these other positions that I was a little skeptical about. And that’s why I think both of us said center might be his most likely spot when we were watching him over the summer. And if he can do that, the advantages that he can present, especially offensively, I mean, you can just put him in so many different spots where I think that it’ll cause confusion and cause problems for opposing defenses. And I think that these early returns are about as good as you could have expected I think from him given, you know, him not playing early in the season and then coming up. So all that is really encouraging. I think Danny is going to be a really fun player hopefully for years to come for this Nets team. Last thing I want to close it out is Ben Saraf came up from the G-League with Danny and has been reinserted into the rotation. He had a really good first game back against the Bucks and since then there’s been some ups, there’s been some downs. I think a lot of downs, but it’s been interesting for Ben so like you started those first five games, he got sent back down. Uh he started the first five games and went straight to the G-League and now it’s come back up and I think you’re seeing a lot of the issues that you expected to see like the three-point shooting hasn’t look good. There’s some decision-m struggles. He’s very left-hand dominant, but you know, I come away, I think it’s about what I expected from Ben. I think that there have been encouraging flashes and then there are a lot of moments where you say he has a really long way to go. So just briefly, what have your thoughts been about Ben since he came back up? The Bucks game was I think his best game so far of his NBA career. And like yeah, there’s enough of like the driving and strength in the lane where he doesn’t get too overwhelmed where you can like probably keep playing him and it’s not going to just destroy his confidence. Uh he needs to keep shooting, but like it’s probably just going to be ugly this year. He’s not going to probably not going to crack 30% from three. Like the misses are way off and stuff. Yeah, he’s he’s at he’s 15 of 54 from three across the NBA and the G-League this year. That’s 28%. But he is taking them. He’s taking he’s taking eight per 100 possessions in the NBA and he was taking 10 per 100 possessions in the G- League. So, to me, that’s positive. It’s looked ugly, but he’s buying into taking them and that something that he wasn’t doing at summer league. So, I’m happy to see that. Definitely. and he just needs to like diversify the finishing a little bit more and like what he does when he gets in the lane. Like I think what’s tough for him is if you go back and you look at his Bundesliga well I don’t know if that’s what it’s called for the basketball league but the German basketball league tape he his scoring counters are all like shoulder step back 15footer spin fade away 14-footer and in the NBA they’re not letting Ben Saraf take early clock mid-range shots and for good reason and so he’s having to like figure out okay if that’s not my bag besides like that del. What do I do when I get in the paint? And so sometimes you’ll see him like del and he’s just getting swallowed up by NBA athletes. So, you know, like a jump stop here, a more elbow here, you know, maybe keeping the dribble alive and like Steve Nashing out the other side of the rim. All that stuff is like I think what we could see like a reasonable expectation for him even if the shot isn’t going to improve efficiency wise probably until next year. But in a sense, decent enough to like keep playing him and letting him work through the struggles. I don’t think he’s been so horrific you can’t play him. And like I do think the attention to detail has been better on defense, which is the reason according to him he got taken out of the rotation in the first place. Yeah, overall I think that it’s been pretty much what I expected with the Ben with the Ben experience. I think we’ve seen the advantage creation show up against some good NBA defenders at times, which is a positive. We’ve seen the passing show up and then we’ve seen the three-point shooting look really ugly and there have been a lot of turnovers and you know spots where he just looks uncomfortable. So overall I think that that’s been what I expected and I think as you said I think it’s good enough for the Nets to give him a look moving forward and we’ll see like he’s going to have to improve in some of those areas but again this is a kid who turned 19 two months before the draft. He’s really young and he’s got a long way to go. So, I think that I’m encouraged enough by the flashes that he’s shown to say that he has some potential moving forward. And does that pan out or does that not? That’s going to be the question with these three point guards net selected. All of them were ultimately dart throws and we’ll see how it pans out moving forward. But Lucas, appreciate you taking the time as always. We got Nets practice tomorrow, two more days of Nets practice and then they play the Mavs on Friday. So, we’ll have you you back on to talk about all that. But yeah, man, I appreciate you taking the time. That does it for today’s episode of Locked on Nets. Hope you guys enjoyed the talk with Lucas. If you do not already, make sure to subscribe to Locked on Nets on YouTube and wherever you get your podcast, whether Apple podcast or Spotify. Also, if you want bonus content from me, all those things I described at the top of the episode, hit up that link lockdowns.cast.com and subscribe to the all access tier of the Everyday program. Also, if you enjoy the content, smash that like button, leave a comment, leave a fivestar review. Anything you can do to engage is much appreciated. We got Nets practice coming up the next couple days and they play the Mavericks on Friday in Dallas. We’ll have coverage of all that and more when I’m back tomorrow talking more Brooklyn Nets basketball.

Erik Slater and Lucas Kaplan analyze Danny Wolf’s encouraging start to his rookie season and why his playstyle is indicative of the Brooklyn Nets’ vision for the future.

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