Jan. 14, 2026, 12:01 p.m. ET
The Brooklyn Nets are not even halfway through their 2025-26 NBA season as they seek to have a better season in head coach Jordi Fernandez’s second year than they did last year. While Fernandez and the players on Brooklyn’s roster are focused on the games to play moving forward, it’s important to also consider who the Nets could be drafting next offseason.
“The Nets are hoping for better lottery luck this year but could find themselves in a tricky position if their pick doesn’t move into the top four,” ESPN’s Jeremy Woo wrote in his first mock draft in 2026. Woo projected the Nets to take Louisville guard Mikel Brown Jr. with the sixth overall pick in the 2026 NBA Draft and he explained why general manager Sean Marks and the front office would lean towards a player like Brown.
“Brown’s upside as a tough perimeter shotmaker and playmaker with plus positional size will keep him in the lottery mix, but his defensive play and streaky shooting (26.8% from 3) have created some lingering questions for him to answer, pending his return,” Woo wrote of what Brown brings to a team at this point in his collegiate career. “Brown’s upside would put him in consideration here, irrespective of fit.”
Brown, 19, has only played in 10 of Louisville’s 17 games this season as he is dealing with a back injury that has him out of the lineup indefinitely, which is not a good sign. However, Brown, listed at 6-foot-5 and 190 pounds, was hovering around being a top-5 pick in the 2026 Draft due to his averages of 16.6 points, 3.0 rebounds, and 5.1 assists per game while shooting 38.1% from the field and 26.8% from three-point land.
While Brown’s shooting percentages are not appealing at first glance, Woo noted that Brown’s selling points are his shotmaking and playmaking abilities to go along with his size, assuming he remains as a point guard at the NBA level. The main objection to the Nets selecting Brown is the fact that Brooklyn selected three point guards in the 2025 NBA Draft: Egor Demin (eight overall pick), Nolan Traore (19th), and Ben Saraf (26th).
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While Saraf hasn’t shown much at this point in the season, Demin and Traore have impressed in various ways with Fernandez trusting Demin to be the starting point guard and Traore as the backup. Be that as it may, if Brown is as impactful as scouts like Woo believe he is, Marks may have a tough decision to make if he can’t choose Kansas guard Darryn Peterson, BYU forward AJ Dybantsa, or Duke forward Cameron Boozer.