The Brooklyn Nets officially began their current rebuild last summer when they shockingly traded guard Mikal Bridges to the New York Knicks for multiple first-round picks over the next few years. Brooklyn has continued to take steps along the way to maximize their goal of acquiring draft capital and/or young players, but they appear to be falling behind other rebuilding teams as well.
“When the Nets got back their draft picks for 2025 and 2026, the plan was not to wind up with the No. 8 pick. From that standpoint, the answer is no,” ESPN wrote when discussing whether the Nets’ rebuild is working at the moment. ESPN gave that explanation within its article ranking Brooklyn eighth in its latest rebuild list, indicating that the Nets are falling towards the middle of the pack in terms of the success of its rebuild.
“But if Brooklyn can come out of next year with a high-end pick, then the Nets can at least begin to move forward,” ESPN continued. “The Porter acquisition took a big chunk out of next summer’s cap space, but the Nets will still have tens of millions to spend.”
After officially ending the Big 3 era in Brooklyn by trading away Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant during the 2022-23 season, the Nets have been trying to get back to the point were they can think about competing for titles again. The 2025 NBA Draft was Brooklyn’s first chance to take advantage of the trades they have been making and they broke an NBA-record by taking five players in the same draft.
Guard Egor Demin, one of the players that Brooklyn took with the eighth overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, will be one of the faces of the Nets’ rebuild given how much draft capital was invested in him. Other than that, Brooklyn is hoping that some of the younger players on the team, such as guard Cam Thomas and forward Noah Clowney, can develop into something more to give this rebuild a better chance of being successful.