The Brooklyn Nets are at the point in their franchise life cycle where they are still looking for their next franchise player to lead the team back to the playoffs sometime soon. With Brooklyn still in the early stages of its rebuild, plenty of players have come through the organization, but one of those former players tipped his hat to the Nets for growing his game.
“If you watch some of my rookie year clips, I was playing the 5 [center] majority of the time, behind Nurk (Jusuf Nurkic), and then transitioned to 4 [power forward], and then transitioned to the 1 [point guard] in Brooklyn, and from there, it just opened up,” Philadelphia 76ers forward Trendon Watford said in an exclusive interview with Ky Carlin of Sixers Wire. Watford spent the past two seasons with the Nets and had the best year of his career during his 2024-25 campaign in Brooklyn.
“When I first got there [Brooklyn], [then-head coach] Jacque Vaughn put me at the 1. I was coming in for I think (Spencer) Dinwiddie at the time, bro. So, I unlocked that level of playing off of ball screens,” Watford said of what former Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn did for his development. “I was able to show people that I could do that, and I think that sort of just followed me to last year, playing with Jordi (Fernandez).”
Watford, 25, averaged 8.2 points, 3.3 rebounds, and 1.8 assists per game while shooting 49.6% from the field and 35.9% from three-point land during his two seasons with the Nets. During his aforementioned 2024-25 campaign, Watford averaged 10.2 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 4.0 assists per contest on .537/.455/.765 shooting splits while being in a position to be the backup point guard behind players like Dennis Schroder and D’Angelo Russell.
Ultimately, Watford became a free-agent for the second consecutive time this summer, essentially going the same route as former LSU teammate Cam Thomas, and he chose to sign with the 76ers in free-agency. Brooklyn went in a different direction as they selected five players in the 2025 NBA Draft, but Watford has given credit for his development to what happened during his time with the Nets.