March 17, 2026, 2:10 p.m. ET

The Brooklyn Nets are at the point of their 2025-26 NBA season where they will be more concerned with evaluating the end of the roster ahead of the offseason. Brooklyn is dealing with some unfortunate injuries to key members of the rotation, but head coach Jordi Fernandez has maintained that the rest of the season will be spent seeing playing who haven’t played much to this point.

“The analytics would come up with a number. Usually, it’s 500 possessions for lineups, so you never get to that. With players, I think it is what it is right now. [We’ll] watch them as much as we can and the sample size that we have, it is what it is,” Fernandez said prior to Monday’s 114-95 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers. With rookie Egor Demin and backup center Day’Ron Sharpe out for the rest of the season, Fernandez and the coaching staff will get a long look at who could be on the roster next year.

“If we could choose, we’d do it differently, but right now we have this opportunity in front of us. These guys will play,” Fernandez continued. “We’ll have these different lineups to see what we have with particular players, but also groups of players, and I think it’s been very good. You saw two comebacks taking leads. Unfortunately, we couldn’t finish winning the games, but I think it tells you the identity of the group of going out there and competing.”

As Fernandez alluded to, the Nets will be trying different combinations of players together, especially with injuries to players like forward Michael Porter Jr. and forward Terance Mann. Fernandez did mention on Monday that Porter is getting better as he recovers from his right ankle sprain, but with Brooklyn being eliminated from postseason contention, it’s fair to assume that the team won’t rushing Porter back.

In the meantime, players like forward Chaney Johnson (17 points, nine rebounds) and rookie Ben Saraf (15 points, four assists) will get more playing time to show what they can do before this season comes to a close. As Fernandez said on Monday, it seems that the Nets have shifted their focus to evaluating the back-end of the roster and he gave a short explanation as to why.

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