The Brooklyn Nets are one of the few teams that have more than one first-round pick in the upcoming 2025 NBA Draft that begins in Brooklyn on June 25. As a result, Brooklyn will most likely be bringing in multiple prospects to build around for the future and those prospects could come from America as well as abroad.
“The game has become so global. To find a guy in some of these places could be massive for your franchise, you have to go wherever the talent is,” BJ Johnson, assistant general manager for the Nets, said in Episode 3 of Brooklyn’s “SCOUT” docuseries. The series has taken fans through a behind-the-scenes look at what the Nets’ scouting process is like and this episode took the conversation to international scouting.
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“Talent can come from anywhere, you always want to be at the forefront of that,” Johnson continued. “The games are different, the strategies are different, and the pace of play is different. But, there are certain things that, regardless, you need a player to have: size for position, the versatility of skill set, the toughness, the competitiveness, the grit, those kinds of things. All that kind of sets the baseline. From there, you can kind of pick out the fine details.”
The episode focuses on the journey that Johnson made to Munich, Germany where he worked with Nets international scouts Simone Casali and Simon Jatsch. Casali has been an international scout for Brooklyn since 2015 while Jatsch is more of an analytics international scout that has been working with the team since the 2023-24 campaign.
“I think understanding the difference between the leagues is one of the most important things, because it’s like comparing conferences in the NCAA, every league has a different style,” Casali said. “Spanish league is more physical and plays bigger. German League, they’re basically playing very, very small. The French league is more athletic. So every league has their own personality. So I think understanding the difference between the style of play in Europe and the States and college and NBA is one of the hardest things to do, to put everything in perspective.”
What makes this episode interesting is that one of the prospects that the Nets could take in the upcoming Draft is French forward Noa Essengue, who plays for Ratiopharm Ulm, a professional basketball team in Germany. Essengue has recently been projected to be selected by the Nets with the eighth overall pick by Bleacher Report’s Jonathan Wasserman so it seems like Brooklyn is one step ahead on scouting a possible addition to the roster.
This article originally appeared on Nets Wire: Nets embracing international scouting ahead of 2025 NBA Draft