Brooklyn Nets center Nic Claxton has been one of the best players on the team over the past few seasons since Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving were traded away. Brooklyn has been relying on Claxton to man the middle as the franchise seeks to get back to the days of competing for championships and Claxton is being recognized as a notable center in the league.
“A quite versatile big man on the defensive end, Nicolas Claxton has very quick movement ability laterally, allowing him to defend on switches at a high level,” HoopsHype’s Frank Urbina wrote while ranking Claxton as the 22nd-best center heading into the 2025-26 campaign. Claxton will head into the season as the 71st-highest-paid player, meaning that he could be a value despite making $25.3 million this upcoming season.
“Claxton’s also a quick leaper and possesses good length (he’s got a near-7-foot-3 wingspan), making him a huge deterrent as a rim protector,” Urbina continued before explaining why Claxton is towards the back half of the top-26 centers in the league. “On the other end, Claxton’s scoring doesn’t have much range to it, nor is he much of a shooter from the free-throw line, meaning opponents often choose to foul him rather than let him just dunk the ball.”
Claxton, 26, is coming off a solid 2024-25 season in which he averaged 10.3 points, 7.4 rebounds, and 2.2 assists per game while shooting 56.3% from the field and 51.3% from the free-throw line. While Claxton hasn’t been able to get back to the days when he led the league in field-goal percentage (70.5%) during the 2022-23 season, he has still been a player that Brooklyn can rely on to be a lob threat and protect the rim.
To give context as to where Claxton ranks among centers, he is behind Dallas Mavericks center Daniel Gafford and in front of Los Angeles Clippers center Brook Lopez. As the Nets head into a 2025-26 season that will be the second season under head coach Jordi Fernandez, the expectation is that Claxton will continue to improve under a new system and culture in Brooklyn.