Egor D\u00ebmin was largely the first brick in Brooklyn\u2019s rebuild.<\/p>\n
In June, he became their first lottery pick in 15 years. <\/p>\n
And now he\u2019s the first Net named to the Rising Stars Competition at All-Star Weekend since 2019.<\/p>\n
The tanking Nets headed into Tuesday\u2019s tilt in Phoenix with the fifth-worst record in the NBA, but they\u2019re the youngest team in the league. <\/p>\n
Egor D\u00ebmin looks to make a play as Payton Pritchard defends during the Nets\u2019 overtime loss to the Celtics. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n
They have a record five first-round rookies on the roster, led by D\u00ebmin, and the teenage point guard will be Brooklyn\u2019s first representative at All-Star weekend since Kevin Durant in 2022.<\/p>\n
While veteran forward Michael Porter Jr. will find out Sunday whether he\u2019s been named to the All-Star reserves, D\u00ebmin has already punched his ticket to Intuit Dome for the Feb. 13 Rising Stars game, with squads drafted Tuesday night. <\/p>\n
The Russian teen is the first Net selected since 2019, when Rodions Kurucs made the rookie team and Jarrett Allen the sophomore squad.<\/p>\n
Picked eighth overall, D\u00ebmin entered the Suns tilt averaging 10.2 points, 3.4 assists and 3.3 rebounds on 40\/40\/85 shooting splits. <\/p>\n
He\u2019s second in this rookie class in 3-pointers per game (2.4) and total 3s (95), seventh in assists and 10th in scoring. <\/p>\n
Head coach Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez talks with Egor D\u00ebmin during the Nets\u2019 overtime loss to the Celtics on Jan. 23, 2026. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n
And he\u2019s first in a five-man Nets class that will be the key to their rebuild.<\/p>\n
After D\u00ebmin, Brooklyn drafted fellow point guard Nolan Traore 19th overall, Drake Powell 22nd, Ben Saraf 26th and finally Danny Wolf one pick later. <\/p>\n
Now Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez must walk the tightrope of developing his youngsters while losing, and somehow not letting them develop losing habits.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, obviously experience in those minutes are important. There\u2019s no (better teacher), nothing better than competitive minutes to improve,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez said of the rookie quintet. \u201c(But) if you play too many losing minutes, also it can create a lot of bad habits. So it\u2019s a fine line. It\u2019s obviously good to see them on the court, but we want them to be better. And we believe they can get there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fern\u00e1ndez said this with the Nets entering Tuesday\u2019s game having dropped 10 of their last 11. <\/p>\n
Two of them were lopsided beatings, a 54-point loss last Wednesday at the Garden and then a 37-point loss at the Clippers.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re clearly starting to exhibit those bad habits Fern\u00e1ndez warned of.<\/p>\n
Though the defeats might be conducive to improving the odds in the May lottery, they\u2019re counterproductive to developing good habits.<\/p>\n
Nets rookie Nolan Traore has shown signs that he can be effective driving to the basket. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to get back to competing every night. So from players to the guys on the bench to the coaches, we all just got to get back to competing,\u201d said Porter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to find a way to get better, keep practicing, keep developing. And all of us have just got to keep getting better, so that we can beat these really good, experienced teams on the road.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whoever the Nets land with their lottery pick in June will be expected to be the single biggest brick in their rebuild. <\/p>\n
But at the moment, the foundation is this quintet of rookies they\u2019re trying to develop this season.<\/p>\n
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D\u00ebmin joins Kon Knueppel and VJ Edgecombe as the only rookies averaging at least 10 points, three assists, three boards and multiple 3s. <\/p>\n
But his inability to get downhill and touch the paint keeps him from unlocking his full passing potential. It\u2019s a ballhandling Achilles heel that leaves the Nets in need of on-ball creation.<\/p>\n
Can the Nets develop Traore into that?<\/p>\n
While D\u00ebmin plays like a high-passing wing, Traore is a blur and a natural playmaker \u2014 albeit one who needs to improve his jumper and finishing at the rim. <\/p>\n
He\u2019d averaged 11.8 points on .368 shooting from 3 and a promising floater in his prior four games \u2014 but will need size and strength to become a high-end role player.<\/p>\n
It remains to be seen if any of D\u00ebmin\u2019s Nets classmates make next year\u2019s Rising Stars as sophomores, or if Brooklyn\u2019s upcoming lottery pick makes it as a rookie. <\/p>\n
But they\u2019ll all be the foundation of this rebuild, and it\u2019s up to Fern\u00e1ndez to make sure that bad habits don\u2019t get baked into that build.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Egor D\u00ebmin was largely the first brick in Brooklyn\u2019s rebuild. In June, he became their first lottery pick…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3767],"tags":[7,670,247,3803,227,248,6,671,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-565471","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn-nets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-brooklyn-nets","11":"tag-brooklynnets","12":"tag-egor-demin","13":"tag-jordi-fernandez","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-nets","16":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115970688131738537","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}