The Brooklyn Nets have been one of the more interesting teams in the NBA over the past few seasons. Despite being considered a contender because of Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden, the most that the organization achieve during the superstar era was getting to the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals before losing to the eventual champion Milwaukee Bucks.
During the trade deadline this past February, Irving and Durant requested to be traded away from the Nets for various reasons and as a result, they were dealt to the Dallas Mavericks and Phoenix Suns, respectively. While Brooklyn lost two superstar-level players in a short amount of time, the franchise was able to gain some critical draft capital and some talented young players to boot.
Fast forward to today, Brooklyn is led by the young core of Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson, and Nic Claxton along with veterans like Spencer Dinwiddie, Dorian Finney-Smith, and Royce O’Neale. While the team isn’t considered much of a contender for a league title right now, there are plenty of reasons to like what’s going on with the Nets.
Sam Quinn of CBS Sports recently published an article ranking all of the 56 first-round picks that have been traded. What he wrote was interesting and here is Nets Wire’s three takeaways from Quinn’s piece:
Nets Have Critical Investment In Phoenix Suns Falling Off
As of right now, Brooklyn has the first, third, fifth, and sixth most-valuable first-round picks over the next seven seasons according to Quinn and most of those picks are coming from the Phoenix Suns, except that the third most-valuable selection is coming from the Dallas Mavericks. Even though Phoenix has a powerhouse right now, Durant is 34 years old while Bradley Beal is 30. Brooklyn is essentially hoping that the Suns will be entering a rebuild by 2027.
The Nets Are Slightly Invested In Philadelphia 76ers Rebuild
As Quinn points out in his article, by the time that the 76ers first-round pick in 2027 is supposed to convey, Joel Embiid will be in his mid-30’s and unless Philadelphia is able to bring in a star player next offseason, assuming that James Harden is not on the team, Embiid could be asking out of Philadelphia by then. At the very least, if Embiid is still with the 76ers by 2027, it will be interesting to see if his body holds up over that period of time given his lengthy injury history so far.
Brooklyn Has Arguably The Brightest Future
Even though the Utah Jazz, Oklahoma City Thunder, and the San Antonio Spurs have most of the first-round picks listed in Quinn’s article, it should be noted that Brooklyn has a good amount of the most-valuable picks at this moment. To put it into perspective, the Nets have four picks that rank inside the top-6 while one of the other three teams, the Spurs, have one such pick. Brooklyn won’t have many attempts with their picks, but when they convey, they have more chances at some players that can become franchise cornerstones.