March 9, 2026, 6:55 p.m. ET
NEW YORK — The Brooklyn Nets had some unfortunate news to share with the public on Monday when they announced that rookie guard Egor Demin was ruled out for the rest of the 2025-26 NBA season. Brooklyn ruled out Demin due to his left plantar fasciitis not improving with rest and head coach Jordi Fernandez had some words to share about his standout rookie.
“First of all, [Demin’s] always been a kid that wants to play, wants to be out there, wants to develop; and nothing better than playing real games to get better at this level,” Fernandez said of Demin prior to Monday’s matchup against the Memphis Grizzlies. The Nets‘ press release mentioned that Demin is “expected to return to basketball activity early in the offseason and be a full participant in the summer development program.”
“Obviously, when you have discomfort and it doesn’t allow you to play at that level, we had to find solutions,” Fernandez continued. “Like we said, we were trying to find the best way. At the end of the day, the good thing is it’s non-surgical procedure. [We’ll] see what the timetable is. Obviously, the summer and getting him to work and get better throughout the process and having a summer is important.”
Demin, 20, finishes his rookie season with averages of 10.3 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 3.3 assists per game while shooting 39.9% from the field and 38.5% from three-point land. Demin, who Brooklyn selected with the eighth overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft out of BYU, hopefully gets to address his plantar fasciitis as much as possible this time around given that he struggled with this issue during this past offseason.
As the Nets move forward with the rest of this season, they will be doing so without one of the five rookies they selected in the first round of the 2025 Draft. Demin being out of the lineup for the rest of the year should give more playing time to rookies like Nolan Traore and Ben Saraf, thereby giving Brooklyn more time to evaluate the rookies in different situations.
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