NEW YORK — The Brooklyn Nets officially began their latest rebuild two summers ago when they traded Mikal Bridges to the New York Knicks in exchange for a bevy of first-round picks. Since then, Brooklyn has made it clear that it is investing heavily in the Draft with the hope of getting their next franchise star, but the 2025 class is not appearing to show any future stars.

The Nets‘ five first-round picks from the 2025 class, guard Egor Demin (eighth overall), guard Nolan Traore (19th), forward Drake Powell (22nd, via trade from the Atlanta Hawks), guard Ben Saraf (26th), and forward Danny Wolf (27th) have all shown glimpses of what pundits saw during the predraft process. As of this writing, it seems that Demin, Powell, and Wolf have worked their way into head coach Jordi Fernandez’s rotation, a great sign for their development.

One of the main talking points for the Nets since they made the decision to trade Bridges to the Knicks was how well general manager Sean Marks and the rest of the front office did in the draft. As of now, Brooklyn has six players on the roster that are 21-years-old or younger, with Clowney and Wolf being the oldest of the younger players as they are both 21 years of age.

What makes the discussion interesting around Brooklyn’s younger players is the fact that they are not only being evaluated amongst themselves, but also compared to how other rebuilding teams in doing in finding their next impact players. It’s fairly safe to say that Demin (9.0 PPG, 3.2 RPG, 3.4 APG, 38.8 FG%, 35.3 3P%) and Wolf (8.1 PPG, 4.2 RPG, 1.8 APG, 40.4 FG%, 38.1 3P%) are the standouts among Brooklyn’s rookie class with Traore, Powell, and Saraf at least one step behind.

There are some who wonder why all of the rookies aside from Demin aren’t playing more given that some teams, such as the Philadelphia 76ers (VJ Edgecombe) and Dallas Mavericks (Cooper Flagg) are giving their rookies more than 30 minutes per game.

The answers aren’t simple since each team is different and has different plans for the players on their rosters, but it should be noted that Fernandez, who has a background in player development, believes that the rookies getting reps in one way or another is better than just giving them all a bunch of minutes they may not be ready for.

“That’s why we have a coaching staff that sees them every day. We can go through the whole roster and also with our coaches. We’re developing coaches, we’re developing players,” Fernandez said at practice earlier this month. Traore, one of the younger players that has yet to establish a solid role within Fernandez’s rotation, recently had the best game of his rookie season at the NBA level in Sunday’s 96-81 win over the Toronto Raptors when he dropped eight points, three rebounds, two assists, one steal, and one block in 22 minutes off the bench.

Those numbers don’t pop off the page the way that some of the premier rookies in his class do, but it was an example of Traore getting better under the current structure of Brooklyn’s development strategy. Some fans were understandably concerned that Traore wasn’t seeing many minutes at the NBA stage given that could indicate that a player isn’t as good as projected, but for the French 19-year-old, the G League minutes improved his confidence.

“I was waiting for this game and I just took the opportunity they gave me. I think I did good and I hope it will continue. It really helps a lot that when you don’t play, you can play some good minutes in Long Island. It’s kind of the same rules as here so it’s easy to translate those to Brooklyn,” Traore said after Sunday’s win. “Yes, I think the more you play, the more you get confidence and tonight is a great example.”