Brian Lewis wrote<\/a> in between those games, his development can best be described as \u201ctricky.\u2019<\/p>\n\u201cUp-and-down rookie season\u201d is an apt description of Drake Powell\u2019s first year with the Nets.<\/p>\n
Of the Nets\u2019 record haul of five first-round picks last June, Powell was the most athletic, but also the most raw on offense. His growing pains on that end of the floor have been protracted and pronounced.<\/p>\n
Powell was the biggest reach of the 2025 NBA Draft for the Nets. The final ESPN mock draft had him at No. 32, at the top of the second round. Using a Hawks pick acquired the night before, the Nets took him at No. 22. Of their four other picks, Ben Saraf was taken six spots earlier than the ESPN projection; Egor Demin, five spots and Nolan Traore three. Danny Wolf was taken 12 spots after where the worldwide leader than projected him.<\/p>\n
The rationale for mocking him so low was simple: After a spectacular high school career in North Carolina, he was limited by Tar Heels head coach (and his cousin) Hubie Davis who saw him as a defense-first player which as Lewis noted, led to \u201ca glaringly low usage rate\u201d which in turn has led to reps on the ball \u201ca work in progress\u201d in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n
Jordi Fernandez has been encouraging both in giving him minutes \u2014 he averaged 25.6 in March, by far his most this season \u2014 and in talking about his improvement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he\u2019s done a good job,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez said his effort following the Kings game. \u201cHe always tries to do everything we ask him to do. Obviously, there\u2019s struggles, there\u2019s positives. [Sunday], it was a little bit of up and down, the game, but ended up being very positive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe shot went in, which is fine. And then at one point he was more physical and aggressive defensively. And I want that physicality to be sustained for whatever minutes he plays. [Sunday], he played 28. So that\u2019s how I want him to play, because he missed some long rebounds, some communication, and then he cleaned it up. So, normal. But overall his willingness to do it, I\u2019m very happy with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the other end of the court, Powell, a naturally gifted athlete, has shown possibilities. Indeed, Lewis has unearthed an interesting fact about his defense:<\/p>\n
The Nets don\u2019t have a single good point-of-attack defender on the roster, somebody who can harass and harangue opposing ballhandlers.<\/p>\n
The Nets drafted Powell in hopes he could grow into that role. And it\u2019s no coincidence that when he posted a league-best 91.9 defensive rating in December, the Nets surged to go 7-4 that month.<\/p>\n
There is general optimism about the 20-year-old as his teammate Noah Clowney noted<\/p>\n
.\u201c[T]But to see him shooting the ball was always good. Ochai [Agbaji], we know what he\u2019s capable of from 3. I think Drake sometimes gets in \u2014 not gets in his head about the 3, but he hesitates a bit. So I\u2019m glad when [the Kings] gave him space, he didn\u2019t hesitate to shoot his s\u2013t at all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drake Powell scored 10 points Tuesday night vs. the Hornets, going 3-of-9 overall and 2-of-6 from deep. Not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3767],"tags":[7,670,247,3803,6,671,2168],"class_list":{"0":"post-693119","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-nba","13":"tag-nets","14":"tag-nets-analysis"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116332820712164563","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693119","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=693119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}