{"id":711650,"date":"2026-04-16T09:04:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T09:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/711650\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T09:04:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T09:04:11","slug":"nets-ben-saraf-reacts-to-up-and-down-2025-26-nba-rookie-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/711650\/","title":{"rendered":"Nets&#8217; Ben Saraf reacts to up-and-down 2025-26 NBA rookie season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>April 15, 2026, 8:53 p.m. ET<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/brooklyn-nets\/17\/\" data-autotag=\"02f2623f-cb52-4847-8284-ff461d726c25\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Brooklyn Nets<\/a> rookie guard <a href=\"\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Ben Saraf<\/a> was one of a few players on the Nets who had to adjust from playing internationally to playing in the NBA seemingly on the fly. Saraf has had some bumps along the road during his initial season in Brooklyn and he is looking forward to being a better player over the course of this offseason.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">&#8220;I&#8217;m very excited for the offseason. I think it&#8217;s gonna be a huge summer for me. It&#8217;s time to work,&#8221; Saraf said after the Nets&#8217; <a href=\"http:\/\/netswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nba\/nets\/2026\/04\/12\/nets-lose-to-raptors-136-101-in-lopsided-regular-season-finale\/89583960007\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">136-101<\/a> loss at the Toronto Raptors on Apr. 12 to end the season. Saraf had one of his better games of the season as he finished the contest with 15 points, three rebounds, and four assists in 26 minutes on the floor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">&#8220;I think it&#8217;s been a tough season for all of us, but I&#8217;m proud of all the guys, all the players,&#8221; Saraf said when asked for his takeaway from this campaign. &#8220;Everybody were pretty positive. I hink we got 1% better every day. This is the goal we set up for ourselves. So, I think we reached our goals.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Saraf, who turned <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/s\/sarafbe01.html\" data-t-l=\":b|z|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">20<\/a> years old on Tuesday, averaged 7.5 points, 2.1 rebounds, and 3.3 assists per game while shooting 39.6% from the field and 21.1% from behind the three-point line. While Saraf has his fair share of struggles over the course of this season, he finished the season on a strong note that should propel him into a beneficial summer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">In April, Saraf averaged <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/s\/sarafbe01\/splits\/2026\" data-t-l=\":b|z|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">14.0<\/a> points, 3.6 rebounds, and 3.8 assists per game while shooting 44.8% from the floor and 18.8% from three-point land in 31.1 minutes per contest. Saraf, the 26th overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, could be facing an important summer as well as he will have to show what he has improved on, starting with the Las Vegas Summer League in July.<\/p>\n<p>Need a news break? <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":body nav (play)|e|auto spike click:6|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_sp_a\" href=\"https:\/\/play.usatoday.com\/?itm_source=SPIKE&amp;itm_campaign=PLAYSPIKE&amp;itm_medium=ONSITE\">Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"April 15, 2026, 8:53 p.m. ET Brooklyn Nets rookie guard Ben Saraf was one of a few players&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":711651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3767],"tags":[72400,7,670,247,3803,6,671,72503,72504,72404,72505,72444,72422,72405,72406,72403],"class_list":{"0":"post-711650","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn-nets","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-brooklyn","11":"tag-brooklyn-nets","12":"tag-brooklynnets","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-nets","15":"tag-sstssportsnbanets","16":"tag-sstsnnets","17":"tag-tagbasketball","18":"tag-tagbrooklyn-nets","19":"tag-tagnational-sports","20":"tag-tagnba","21":"tag-tagoverall-positive","22":"tag-tagsports-news","23":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116413589018468546","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711650","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=711650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/711651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}