The Brooklyn Nets made the decision two seasons ago to invest heavily in the draft as their way of getting back to the playoffs with their own homegrown franchise talent. Brooklyn hasn’t had much luck in the Lottery over the past two seasons, but the organization should feel good about the fact that one outlet seems them as having one of the best draft assets in the NBA.
ESPN’s Bobby Marks recently put together a list of all 30 NBA teams divided into seven tiers to illustrate where each team stands in terms of the draft assets that team holds at the moment. The Nets placed in the first tier of teams, per Marks, given that they have 13 incoming first-round picks between now and 2033 while also being able to trade a maximum of nine first-round teams if they wanted to accomplish a certain objective.
“The Nets finished the season with the league’s youngest roster and now add a top-six pick to the five first-rounders selected in last year’s draft,” Marks wrote when explaining why the Nets rank in the first tier of teams. “Brooklyn has four unprotected first-rounders over the next seven years, acquired in two separate trades (Mikal Bridges to the Knicks and Cameron Johnson to the Nuggets).
To be clear, it seems that Marks’ list isn’t an evaluation of the talent on the individual teams, but just displaying how the teams stack up against each other in terms of draft capital. More to the point, Brooklyn is in the same tier as the Charlotte Hornets, Memphis Grizzlies, Oklahoma City Thunder, San Antonio Spurs, Utah Jazz, and Washington Wizards, but it’s clear that the Thunder and Spurs are the best teams in the tier.
The next first-round pick that the Nets will be able to use is the No. 6 overall pick in June’s 2026 NBA Draft and in the meantime, plenty in the NBA space will be speculating on who Brooklyn will be selecting with the pick. The good news is that the Nets will have plenty of chances to acquire first-round talent over the next seven years so they’ll get multiple bites at that proverbial apple.
This article originally appeared on Nets Wire: ESPN ranks Nets in first tier of NBA teams with draft assets
Reporting by Sharif Phillips-Keaton, Nets Wire / Nets Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
