NEW YORK — Brooklyn Nets rookie guard Nolan Traore is heading into the 2025-26 NBA season looking to make a good first impression following an uneven outing in the Las Vegas Summer League. One of the most important storylines to watch in training camp is Brooklyn’s point guard battle, and Traore knows what he has to improve on if he is going to earn ample playing time.
“I think it’s gone very well. We’re learning a lot of new things. Just try to understand the coach and the players a little bit more. Yeah, we learn new things. We compete, and it’s good,” Traore said after Friday’s training camp practice. Traore, along with fellow 2025 NBA Draft classmates in Egor Demin and Ben Saraf, will be competing to see who ends up where within the lead guard rotation.
“(It) just means you got to be the fastest guy on the court. That’s every game, and it’s 82 games,” Traore said when asked what head coach Jordi Fernandez meant when he said that he has to sustain his speed. “It’s a lot, and you just have to keep your body and take care of your body. That’s what that is.”
Traore, the 19th overall pick in the 2025 Draft, will be looking to find a prominent role within head coach Jordi Fernandez’s rotation, but that will require him to be ready to produce from the beginning. Demin, who is currently dealing with a Plantar Fascia injury, is presumably in the lead to be the starter while Ben Saraf has drawn rave reviews from Fernandez and some of the other players.
Traore finds himself in the unique position of having to develop into an NBA-level point guard while being asked to contribute given that Brooklyn is coming off a 26-56 campaign last season. Not to mention that Kobe Bufkin, the Nets’ trade acquisition from the Atlanta Hawks in the offseason, could factor into that battle as well given his prior experience at playing both guard spots. Traore is confident in himself, however.
“I think it’s kind of the same with every team. We all go through training camps like this, even in Europe, even in college and everything. You go through the same type of things every year, and being able to play pro last year of course helped me, and it just got me more ready for this,” Traore said.