{"id":822926,"date":"2026-08-28T21:45:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T21:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/822926\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T21:45:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T21:45:24","slug":"nets-joshua-jefferson-chooses-new-jersey-number-to-begin-nba-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/822926\/","title":{"rendered":"Nets’ Joshua Jefferson chooses new jersey number to begin NBA career"},"content":{"rendered":"

After wearing the same jersey number for most of his basketball career, Joshua Jefferson will have a new look when he takes the court next season with the Brooklyn Nets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jefferson donned No. 5 at Liberty High School in Nevada and kept it for his first two years at St. Mary’s. He wore No. 2 upon transferring to Iowa State since No. 5 was taken by Curtis Jones, but he reverted back to No. 5 last season after Jones left for the NBA.<\/p>\n

The 28th overall pick opted to wear No. 9 with the Nets, since No. 5 is retired in honor of Hall of Famer Jason Kidd and No. 2 is taken by Danny Wolf. He will be the 20th player<\/a> in franchise history to wear No. 9, and the first since E.J. Liddell last season.<\/p>\n

Jefferson was a consensus second-team All-American last season, averaging 16.4 points, 7.4 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 1.6 steals while shooting 34.5% from 3-point range. He ranked sixth in the country in box plus-minus (plus-13.0) and 19th in win shares (6.1).<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old logged three appearances with the Nets in summer league, averaging 7.3 points, two steals, 1.7 rebounds and 1.3 assists while shooting 33.3% from the field. He debuted on July 11, recording nine points and two steals.<\/p>\n

Jefferson was highly touted out of college because of his scoring, rebounding and overall versatility.\u00a0The team was ecstatic to add him to the roster and is eager to see him take the court.<\/p>\n

Throughout August, Rookie Wire is looking at every first-round pick and why each player selected their respective jersey number as they make the jump to the NBA<\/p>\n

Previous:AJ Dybantsa<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Darryn Peterson<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Cameron Boozer<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Caleb Wilson<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Keaton Wagler<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Mikel Brown Jr.<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Darius Acuff Jr.<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Kingston Flemings<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Morez Johnson Jr.<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Brayden Burries<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Yaxel Lendeborg<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Aday Mara<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Nate Ament<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Hannes Steinbach<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Dailyn Swain<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Bennett Stirtz<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Ebuka Okorie<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Christian Anderson Jr.<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Allen Graves<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Jayden Quaintance<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Karim L\u00f3pez<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Labaron Philon Jr.<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Zuby Ejiofor<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Cameron Carr<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Sergio De Larrea<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Tarris Reed Jr.<\/a> | Chris Cenac Jr.<\/a><\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Rookie Wire: Nets’ Joshua Jefferson chooses new jersey number to begin NBA career<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After wearing the same jersey number for most of his basketball career, Joshua Jefferson will have a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":822927,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3767],"tags":[7,670,247,3803,6,671],"class_list":["post-822926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn-nets","tag-basketball","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-nets","tag-brooklynnets","tag-nba","tag-nets"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117175328645792998","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822926","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=822926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/822927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=822926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=822926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=822926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}