The Brooklyn Nets came into the 2025 NBA offseason with the goal of improving the roster for the 2025-26 season while taking chances on players that could be part of the franchise’s future. Brooklyn has already made tweaks to the roster by adding veterans like Michael Porter Jr., but it seems that the team is also looking to take chances on young players as well.

Per HoopsHype’s Michael Scotto on Saturday, the Nets have agreed to a deal with forward Fanbo Zeng, who is currently considered one of the best prospects in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA). Scotto notes in his report that Zeng is coming off his best season in the CBA as he averaged 14.7 points, 4.6 rebounds, 1.8 assists, and 1.6 blocks per game while shooting 53.0% from the field and 40.9% from three-point land.

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Zeng, 22, first made his name known within NBA Draft circles when he attended the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) Top 100 Camp in 2019, a showcase intended to show some of the best high-school players in the country. In October of 2021, Jonathan Givony reported for ESPN that Zeng would sign with the NBA’s G League Ignite program in anticipation of declaring for the 2022 NBA Draft.

Following the conclusion of the 2021-22 season, Zeng played in 22 games for the Ignite, but averaged just 5.0 points and 2.3 rebounds per game while shooting 38.5% from the floor and 31.0% from deep. After going undrafted in the 2022 Draft, Zeng signed with the CBA’s Beijing Shougang where he would spend the next three seasons and play some of his best basketball.

With Zeng signing to the Nets’ roster, that now puts Brooklyn’s total of players at 20, including forward Ziaire Williams, center Day’Ron Sharpe, and forward Ricky Council IV, whose transactions are still pending as of this writing. During the offseason, teams are allowed to carry as many as 21 players before having to cut the roster down to 18 players broken into 15 players on standard NBA contracts and three players on Two-Way deals.

This article originally appeared on Nets Wire: Report: Nets sign F Fanbo Zeng, formerly of the NBA G League Ignite