Jan. 26, 2026, 6:42 p.m. ET
The Brooklyn Nets will have some interesting decisions to make prior to the NBA trade deadline on Feb. 5, most likely including whether they decide to trade forward Michael Porter Jr. While most of the focus on Brooklyn’s moves in the trade market will be on Porter and center Nic Claxton, there is one player that could be on the Nets‘ radar to bring into the organization.
“Cody Williams has churned out more encouraging stretches of late, but it’d be a stretch to call him part of the Utah Jazz‘s plans,” Dan Favale recently wrote for Bleacher Report. Favale’s piece was giving three players for each NBA team to pursue in the trade market and for the Nets, one of the players was Utah Jazz forward Cody Williams, who seems to be coming on as of late.
“He can continue the Nets’ trend of snaring wings who’ve left underwhelming impressions in hopes of rehabilitating their values and trajectories,” Favale continued. “He lands the top spot as someone with two more years left on his rookie scale rather than a soon-to-be restricted free agent like Jeremy Sochan and Jaden Ivey.”
Williams, 21, is averaging decent numbers this season with 5.5 points and 2.2 rebounds per game while shooting 46.2% from the field and 22.4% from three-point range in 33 games played. While Williams, the 10th overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft out of Colorado, had a disappointing rookie year last season, he seems to have figure out how to make more of an impact in Utah’s rotation despite his counting stats looking similar.
Williams is shooting nearly 13 percentage points better from the field than he did last season as a rookie (32.3%) and his effective field-goal percentage is at 50.0%, miles better than where that figure was for him last year (39.1%). Williams is owed $5.7 million this season and while he two years left on his rookie deal, those years are team options so if the Nets aren’t satisfied with his production in the second half of the season, they could let him walk without any additional costs.
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To Favale’s point, Brooklyn general manager Sean Marks has shown that he is willing to take a risk on players with draft capital that would indicate that the players is highly-talented, such as forward Ziaire Williams. Williams, the 10th overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft out of Stanford, was acquired by Brooklyn from the Memphis Grizzlies in July of 2024 along with a 2030 second-round pick in exchange for the rights of Nemanja Dangubic and Mamadi Diakite.