The Nets are STILL in a good spot despite lottery results

The Nets are STILL in a good spot despite lottery results

Coming up, the dust has settled and the tears have been dried. Where do we think the Brooklyn Nets now stand as they eyeball the eighth overall pick and the potential fallout of Giannis hitting the market? We dive in coming up next. [Music] You are Locked on Nets, your daily Brooklyn Nets podcast. Part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. Ah, yes, my friends. It is the Locked on Nets podcast right here on the Locked On Network. It’s your team, the Brooklyn Nets. Every single day, he’s Doug Nory. I’m Adam March. We thank you as always for making us your first listen of the day. We are 100% free on all those great platforms. And dive into today, Doug. one, a guy that off the top of the show can’t seem to get his verbal cadence correct, but also where the Nets stand now. Eighth overall pick in next month’s draft. We know the rumblings of Giannis hitting the market. There are there are ways, and we will paint them for you, that this can still be a exciting, interesting, and positive offseason for the Brooklyn Nets. Yeah, look, 24 hours removed from what was clearly a really disappointing lottery pull. Um, and you know, they just can’t really move on with anything but positivity from here on out because just at this point, it is what it is. And I’m mostly saying that as a reminder of myself. I’m not uh I know that I’m uh can be predisposed to being glass all the way empty at times even when you know where it’s I think sometimes it’s pragmatic and other times it’s just like not that helpful. But in this case, it’s, you know, it’s eighth pick or bust. Um, and there this is a very talented draft. And while we clearly wanted a situation where we’re talking Cooper Flag right now, we’re talking Dylan Harper, even talking Ace Bailey or BJ Edgecom, like I think that like there’s a world where we’re very very excited about these those promises. There is a there’s a part of the world there’s a part of that where ETH takes some of that um say takes some of that excitement off. And we’ve done a lot of just deeper dives during the draft season and thought that there’s guys in this eighth range that would have gone really a lot higher if it were last year’s draft, which I understand was like a historically bad draft. So, it’s not just it’s it’s a little apples to bowling overall. We’re going to be talking about players that are going to be probably be able to make immediate impacts on the Nets next season. And then we’ll also as we go through get into like some of the lower draft stuff. But I mean, now that we’re 24 hours out, like, how do you feel? Cuz I I I felt we were live on the air when that ETH thing came out and I actually just I kind of stumbled for words for a little because I it was just hard. I was like, “Oh, this this this is this is the this is the this is the problem with this. It’s like hard to root for this stuff.” You know what I I think is weird is maybe fascinating about our our podcast journey is. And so we were going to predicting it and you said I think they’re going to pick seventh cuz that’s where the odds say it’s going to be and I’m going to go with you know chalk on it which is typically which what Doug you know he follows logic which makes a lot of sense. I said they’re going to spike. They’re going to spike. They’re going to get a top four here. Maybe it’ll just be the fourth but it’ll still be something a little bit to give a taste back to the fan base. But when it got announced and the Nets were eighth, I think Doug more than me was actually dejected by it because it’s like there’s something about Yeah. I throw my optimism into the pool, but then when it doesn’t turn out that way, I’m like probably because I go, well, I’ll be optimistic about Hula Pikad then, right? So, like I dial it forward to the next opportunity for optimism where I think it does take it takes you a second to go, well, I know I know I said this is what I thought was going to happen, but I was kind of banking on the idea that my own pessimism was going to be pushed back on by the cosmic basketball gods, right? The whole banking the whole banking you’re you summed that up perfectly because it was full banking on if I’m pessimistic now everyone wins when I look when I’m wrong and I this is the old happy to be wrong scenario. It’s like I would love to be wrong about this and I’ll and everyone can just do the the merrygoround on me for like for being wrong except it turned out I was like damn I was right and now it feels bad. But all all things considered it was a crazy draft night. It was a rough night for like sort of like tanking rhetoric and I think it’ll be very interesting going into next year sort of like what the storyline is because when you I don’t think there’s like a conspiracy at all here but like when you are show you know picks traded and where the first where the first pick is landed it’s not a great not a great it’s not a great look. Yeah you know what I we’re going to vamp a little bit like just sort of freewheel here a little bit. I want to say one thing about the conspiracy theory. I’m not I think there’s like worlds where conspiracy theories sound interesting slash they could sound true. I also subscribe to humans are awful at keeping secrets and like that’s where almost all the for me all the conspiracy theories fall fall down because it’s just like humans all the humans I’ve dealt with in my life just can’t keep their mouth shut about anything. And so what how could we possibly think that like there could be many people at the top of this like multi-billion dollar organizations that could all be trusted over the lifetime to just keep their mouths absolutely shut about it. And that’s where the conspiracy theories fall down for me. It’s like, and I fully admit that when you look at the track record, it doesn’t look amazing with LeBron, you know, Cleveland, like LeBron, then Kyrie, or no, and then they get LeBron and then the 80s stuff with the Pelicans and then the 80s and then the stuff again with 80 on the way out and then 80 on the way in with after the Chris Paul thing. And there’s like one well now the Cooper flag one clearly after Luca, which is like the most mind-boggling trade of all time. Not a great look for the NBA, even though Dallas fans somehow spike the nuts once again. But like overall, I don’t think it was a conspiracy. I don’t like I stopped short. And this of course this is of course where when that graphic comes up like that, that’s what Adam Silver and all those plugged into the NBA would say. Guys, if if we were rigging this thing, do you really think that we would allow it to look this egregious year-over-year? Stop, fellas. That’s that’s how they that’s how you cover your tracks. What the bottom line is, you make it so difficult, right? When you when you walk into your house and the lamp is broken and your daughter’s standing there with a hammer in her hand, you go, “Well, there’s no world. It can’t be this. Would I really be standing here with a hammer if I had broken the lamp? Would I would I really No, it’s a great It’s like you hide it in plain You hide it in plain sight where it’s just so obvious that you just you take you sort of like plead the fifth around rationality.” Yeah. No, I Anyway, we’re we’re off the trail here, but the overall disappointing night. Yes. But that being said, so we we talk about right so you have to get get yourself separated from okay you’re not in that conversation Cooper flag Dylan Harper Ace Bailey VJ Edgecom you’re also not in the conversation around Giannis as we’re going to get into here coming up next where sorry too too many too many people are going to come to the table with too many more interesting offers and where the Nets are as a franchise if you want to go the route of well Giannis will say where he wants to go great he may say he wants to go someplace better but all of those things you push to the side and as you said at the top Remind yourself that we talked about players we did episode after episode about Kipple, about Malawatch, about Trey Johnson, about Derek Queen, right? There are guys here at the eighth overall pick that are going to be really good players and potentially cornerstone players for the franchise. So, you have to be able to not, you know, accept it. Get over it, I guess, is really the point. And I’m not saying that just to the fan base or just to Doug. I’m saying to me, everybody has to go. That thing didn’t happen. This is where we are now. And there still are versions of this off seasonason that can be really good starting in the draft here. And coming up in a second, we’ll talk about a couple of guys that maybe are being discussed jumping into the top 10 where the Nets may look at them at the eighth overall pick. And then also Giannis. Okay, great. We don’t think that Giannis is going to end up in Brooklyn. It doesn’t mean though that NBA offseasons that always have fallout around big star play movement couldn’t benefit the Brooklyn Nets as well. We’ll do that here in just one moment. All right, before we get to that, tell our friends over at Wayfair. Look, days are getting longer, weather’s warming up, people spending more time outside means it’s a perfect time to refresh that outdoor space. Whether you’re working with a big backyard with a small balcony, Wayfair has everything you need to make it feel more like you. Wayfair’s massive selection of outdoor essentials makes it easy to transform any space into your ideal summer setup. They have the comfy comfy conversation setups and sleek dining room tables or excuse me, dining tables, not room because we’re outside, baby. And outdoor decor. They got it all the prices that fit your budget. Maybe you’re uh getting a new patio dining set and maybe some string lights from Wayfair. It’s going to completely set up that outdoor space for you. You can mix styles as well. Delivery is free and hassle-free even for the big stuff shop. A huge collection, a huge collection and selection of outdoor furniture online this summer. Get outside with Wayfair. Head to wayfair.com right now. That’s wyfir.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. All right, as we continue today’s Lockdown Nets episode, turning the page. And by the way, I use that similar type of phrase over on social media following the results of the draft lottery. And people gave me very colorful responses to what the next page looks like. So, I understand there’s still a segment that’s not thrilled with this, but let’s start on the draft board here, Doug. when we talk about a couple of names maybe specifically that could be jumping up into that top 10 conversation and and where the Nets can be still be excited the fan base around players that can possibly get there at eight. Like we’re going to talk I think we’re we’re going to dive a little deeper on some of these guys now that we have a very clear sort of like look at what this is going to be and I think there’s going to be I think I think I can say pretty clearly that Flag Harper, ACL, VJ Edgecomb are gone. Okay. So I think those four are locked to not be there. I would probably put Trey Johnson on the outside looking into I think after that though their group of Kanka nipple Jeremiah Fierce uh Kim and Malwatch Derek Queen we’ll throw Jakionis in there we’ll throw Noah Seni with who we haven’t talked about yet but I’m excited to because he’s another guy I think could really rise I mean that group is a good solid group of basketball players right I think that like that group um I think there’s a world where yes it’s not Cooper flag Dylan Harper territory and not even Ace territory But these are like good solid basketball players. Some with ma I think massive upside. I think some have like higher floors um than others. I think some have really massive upside. And then there’s a couple guys like we don’t even totally agree about maybe the consensus like fears who I still tell you right now they draft fears I I’d be all in. I would I would I would reverse course very quickly on my Jeremiah fears like take if they drafted and be like never mind he’s going to be awesome because like you can also tell your story you can tell a story like pretty easily with him too. So, I think there’s going to be a a world where they take someone at eight, we get pretty excited about it, that player will almost for sure start for the Nets next year, right? Like right out of the gate. I don’t think there’s I don’t think that’s a hot take just judging on who the Nets have. So, I think they’re looking at an exciting player. There’s a mix of guys they can take in this range between just pure point guard players to sort of like Mali watch who’s just, you know, prototypical five who could have real upside if like some if it ever comes out that he can like actually shoot, right? Like there’s we’re going to tell ourselves a lot of different stories here and I Yeah, this, you know, would the outside looking in make it sound like copium? I I guess this is we’ve said from the very beginning this is a very very deep draft. And yes, comparing it to last year is not fair because last year was a dumpster fire of a draft. But you kind of just are if there’s a year to get eighth, this is the year kind of like because like this is like there are actual good players that are in this draft. And you really can’t say you couldn’t say that with certainty about a lot of other drafts at least since we’ve been covering this um where you’ve been like are we so confident that like one of these guys is going to be good. I feel very confident that a few of these guys are going to be very good NBA players. I think that’s not a hot take at all. And I was thinking about it too. We talk about, you know, we talked about uh uh guys like Assa New out of Georgia. We talked about CNB out of South Carolina. We’re going to get to other players here and I I I started to think about it’s like how far back do you go? We started to say this at the beginning of it. Where’s the cut off at the top of the draft and the next group, right? Second and third tier with inside the lottery and even this first round. But I think the real question is like you mentioned about Jeremiah Fears. the second that he gets drafted by the Nets, I’m gonna be incredibly excited because there’s a lot about his game to love. Is there really Can you make a case for somebody, and I mean within reason of where they are on the board, where if the Nets drafted player X8, you would go, boy, they you know what I mean? Like, wow, you somehow managed to to make the worst choice in a pretty good situation. I’m hardressed to think that there’s some player like fears based on his size. We have we didn’t get into talking about uh Jace Richardson again, 63 buck 85, backcourt player out of Michigan State. Like there’s positional reasons why I might not be as excited, but I don’t think the Nets will draft someone where I won’t immediately follow up and say, “Okay, this guy can fit in a position X. It means we can think about the back end of the first round, other guys they’ll add to him and what he could look like over the next two and three seasons developing underneath Jordy Fernandez.” No, I didn’t get that sense from anyone we saw. I I I I don’t think like I thought that everyone here had a skill set that you could all every player in this range that we discussed and I think what we did we did 11 guys 12 guys I think total um every player that we talked about except for maybe and I don’t even think he’s going to be here when it’s all said and done like I could tell myself a nice story about their upside and for most of them I could tell myself a nice story about their floor too. Um, yeah. And then there’s a few that I think have like real upside if if it kind of all comes together. And so I don’t think I would be I guess like maybe I’d be slightly disappointed. Maybe there’s like probably tears for me. Like sure, but I’m not even ready to say what they are. So I think that overall my feeling of this group was as we as we walked through them, I found I think we both found significant things to like about just about every player we talked about. We talked about their flaws too and that’s why they’re eighth and not Cooper Flag, right? Like or Dylan Harper where it’s like it’s harder to find what the problems are. But the problems, none of the problems were insurmountable. I’ll say that. Like none of the problems were things that you couldn’t just, you know, you’re 18 and a half now and by the time you’re 22, like they figured it out. I think most of these guys had something that you could see the upside on. So, I’m not really doom and gloom about this even though it feels very consolation prizy, but again, I str since we’ve been doing it’s clearly the deepest draft. Like, I don’t think it’s even close. Um, and since we’ve been kind of like talking about I hesitate sometimes to go back too much further to where we weren’t doing like extreme draft coverage. But since we’ve been doing it, this is like you can get to 10 and still be pretty exc like when Jeremiah Fears is at 10, you’re like, “Oh, we’re doing pretty good.” Like I think that’s like like I I think that that’s kind of like that’s I think he’s a good example of what I mean by that because it’s like I’m not even the highest on him and if you get all the way to 10 and you’re this guy’s like flirting around the top 10 you’re like man this must be a pretty damn good draft because like he’s a really good player and I can find enough flaws and I just can’t maybe guarantee he’s in the top 10 whereas any other draft he would be for almost for sure. We so we can do one of two things and I agree with you. we can turn start to turn our attention to the if not Giannis conversation also about the outlook of what this season is going to be like and it was going to be this way. Guess what? Even if they got Cooper flag, it was still going to be a season that was going to be another hey this is step one or step two of whatever how many step process the Nets need to go through. But we can I wanted to also just touch on one player that we we didn’t talk about and probably when we think about like a Jace Richardson, we talk about Newell guys that we maybe don’t see as being as high up on the board. There has been one international player who is only 18 and a half at the time of the draft. So that sub19 year old range that is now getting talked about maybe where this becomes like we we discussed the home run swing, right? Take the big swing here on a guy that has a lot of upside and we think the Brooklyn Nets could end up finding that proverbial diamond in the rough. Do we want to talk about him here or wait until the back end? Your call. Uh you can choose. I think that they’re I think they’re both I think it’s a fair game. You you choose, but you host the hostess. You’re the hostess. Yeah, I’m the most I wrote down on the thing here. Noah Aseni, I had the name. I didn’t need you to say it out loud before I was able to pronounce it myself. The Noah Aseni international player out of right now if you go by we’ll go by say tankathon has him at 14. So technically in the lottery 610 buck 90 to 95ish kind of range young player obviously this is one of those things where I always think like international players from a just very generic high level they always get thought about a little bit differently and he would be as of right now the highest at least on Tankathon’s draft board two more back Nolan Trayori currently at 16 both these guys though Trayori as well getting talked about more now as the draft is approaching next month I think aseni probably falls into this category when we talked about some of these other prospects. The raw potential is there and you could easily say two years from now you’re talking about oh they should have been discussing him being in the top 10 from day one maybe leading to the draft and being worthy of discussion around that seven eight you know kind of range maybe six six to eight probably maybe it will feel right when you reflect back two years from now. Yeah. And like and I know you know France has gotten gassed up a little bit in recent years because like obviously Wemby helps here but then you got Bulah Kobali who kind of fits like this not exactly this mold but like it’s like oh it was all tool it was all projectables without too much of the basketball and then all of a sudden you’re like a year in on him and you’re like well that was going to that’s going to work right and so and I hate to just like just because the country you’re from you get compared to the other guys that your country is from but because I don’t think that’s totally correct but we have seen a few of these guys come from France now where like it’s like okay that story seems to at least translate one to one and a Seni is just a guy again he’s an example of depending on where you look it’s like 15 all the way to top 10 like like there’s people that have him in the top 10 somewhere so I think that he’ll be a fascinating one I can see as we get closer to the draft as people get more into this and start dialing themselves more into like watching film and like really getting excited about stuff he’s a guy people will want to talk themselves into more than maybe some of these other guys because you’re like woo I could like imagine a 6ix9ine frame where it can do some of this other basketball stuff but it’s just kind of raw now and we’ll get we can deep dive on him later I think but I think in general he’s a guy that I kind of wish we had talked about like with that last I actually if I let me put it this way if I were to redo it again but him yeah exactly like exactly we were kind of going chalk down we just chose we just chose one place and just did it that way um but if I were to go back I’d be like oh we should have talked about him. So, we’ll do that later in the week cuz I think this a guy that we there’s a story to tell here that Nets fans can be pretty excited about. And now with the Nets picking eighth overall, obviously they’ll have some choices to make here. The other choice is what are the options potentially on the table? When we think about Giannis, he wants out. Brooklyn Nets most likely not going to get them, but there can be fallout from that. There’ll be free agents from that. Is there a path here where the Brooklyn Nets can make their options even stronger this offseason, next off seasonason, next draft, and make sure that they still give themselves a chance to build around all the young talent they’ll be bringing in. We’ll do that here in just Uno Momento or Vavar. All right, before we get to that, our friends are over at Car Gurus. Look, shopping for a car should be exciting, not exhausting, and we know it can be. Between confusing prices, hidden fees, it can feel totally overwhelming. That’s why I got to love using Car Gurus. They help you cut through the noise, show you the best deals with full confidence. Over 4 million listings. CarGurus has more new and used cars than any other major online marketplace in the US. They verify the dealers. They provide real price analysis and give you the tools and data you need to make the right choice without second-guessing yourself. You need a deal you can trust. CarGurus makes it easy to compare vehicles sidebyside with unbiased deal rate uh deal ratings. It’s no wonder similar web estimated traffic data shows CarGurus is the number one most visited car shopping sites for a reason folks. Buy or sell your car today with CarGurus at cargurus.com. Go to cargurus.com to make sure your big deal is the best deal. That’s curus.com cargurus.com. All right, there’s a tie pretty little bow on today’s locked on nets episode talking about being in the eighth position overall. Why there are a lot of options there as we mentioned a player like Aseni. There’ll be a couple other guys that we at least discuss about being potential. So there’s two things I want to do here. One, there’s the Giannis has requested the trade all but requested a trade from Milwaukee. So you expect there to be some real traction around that this off seasonason leading up to the draft over the next month. But even beyond that one, do you think there’s a world where the net’s sitting at eight, a team is like, “Hey, the one of those guys from that six to kind of 10 range, we actually really love that player. Are you interested in maybe making a move?” I specifically bring this up around the idea of getting out of an eighth overall pick this year and getting a another first round pick in next year’s very deep draft class as well for flexibility. It’s I think there’s a reason you don’t often see these kinds of things happen in the NBA because unlike the NFL where we can like onetoone say this is who you gave up like the NFL there’s so many guys drafted it very rarely h it’s like okay if it happens at like a quarterback at the top of the class you can tell the story and everyone else like everyone just kind of forgets right like so um the NBA is a little different just because there’s so excuse me so few players I think there’s a reason you don’t see some of those trades like this happen and the times where you do remember it it’s like it went the worst possible way for the team drafting up because it was or moving up or or down or whatever because it was like well faults for Tatum you’re like well geez that looks terrible or Luca for Trey um right like and so and it’s just like so clearly one for one where you don’t want to do it so I think there’s a reason sort of structurally you don’t see draft picks like that draft show so I don’t think that’s really that likely. Um, I also don’t think because I’ve seen a lot of people have messaged me about this, um, or a lot people, some folks have messaged me about this where it’s like, you think messaged you about this more than one less than 10 probably. Um, where they were like, do you think the Nets move up like to like two or three? That’s just everyone needs to get that out of their head right now. Like there’s just not they’re not moving up. Like they’re not moving up in this draft. They’re for sure. I mean, people are like, “Do you think they can move up Cam Johnson in the eight for two?” I’m like, “Please, please don’t don’t even begin thinking this.” Like, it’s just totally impossible. Anyone anyone in that nation that’s like telling you that’s a possibility is selling you completely false hope and you can at me and at them and I’ll I’ll I’ll feel free to quote them. It’s just like totally never going to happen. Teams do not do it. The only way you would see like a Dylan Harper get traded is if it’s like Giannis, right? Like if it’s like Dallas has already said they’re not doing it for Cooper Flag, so that one’s over. They just came out and said it and you trade a Dylan Harper if you can get Giannis and that’s like kind of it. It’s not like so you can get and you already have Wimpy. There’s actually a bit of a there is a bit of a an equation there as well about oh we have the second overall for Giannis only talent. Well, we already have a superstar that we want to pair him with that’s young and ready to go, right? We can already tell we’re we’re all the way in the championship window if we do that, right? Like then you do it. Otherwise, like you’re just not going to do it. So, I I really want to caution that any Nets fans that’s out there being like trying to go into the trade machine and trying to get the Nets from eight to like even four. I I just don’t think it’s happening. I think they’re sticking at eight. Maybe, you know, the moving back thing I hadn’t thought about, but I could see that. That one’s a little bit more palatable because I think what we said from the beginning is that teams are going to internally evaluate these players much differently. And if they have if they’ve sniffed out that a guy they really like is just not going to go like before eight then and someone that has done a different evaluation on a different player wants to get into I think that is actually that’s not zero. Um I just don’t think there’s a world where they move up. And the honest thing I guess we can talk about it here too like the honest thing could have major ramifications for he is not going to be a net. Uh I can say that pretty confidently. Um yeah, but the like the downchain effects of what happens to him probably will feel the Nets will feel some tremors of you would think somehow. Um although I’m not exactly sure maybe we talk about that different scenarios. Here’s what I Well, here’s what I think. So, okay, the first least sexiest version of of a Giannis move is the Nets are capable of taking on contracts. Hi, how are you? We can take on your money. Like you you need to do you need to get something done here. Somebody else needs to shed money to make room for Giannis, right? And maybe other players. Yep. We can tell ourselves a story around that. So, the Brooklyn Nets being able to take on money and maybe get some more draft capital. That’s the le that’s not fun. That’s not going to excite the fan base, but it would just be moving in the direction of flexibility, having even more assets, waiting for the next guy. The secondary version of it is, I think, teams that say, “Oh, we want Giannis. Here’s our offer.” And at the end of the day, he goes, let’s say he goes to San Antonio, right? Second overall pick. Milwaukee has to reset themselves around Dylan Harper and away you go. Those other three or four or five teams that were willing to go all in. A lot of those version situations are going to be ones where they say, “Well, we tried to go all in because if we didn’t get Giannis, we’re going to go the other way and we’re going to start talking about blowing this thing up.” And and that’s where I wonder if the Nets get like a lowcost fringe lead player, not as sexy as Giannis, but maybe a couple of situations where teams are going to have to make hard choices. And even unrelated to Giannis, you brought this up before we started. There’s other teams that are on the brink of elimination in the in the Eastern Conference that we’re maybe already going to have difficult financial conversations going into this off seasonason regardless of how the playoffs worked out. Brooklyn might have a chance there as well. The balance of power is about to shift in the NBA for sure because I think Giannis is probably going to get traded and I mean I think we already knew this but it was like literally just announced as we were talking that Jason Tatum to his Achilles. So he was brutal injury last night and he’s going to be out for the year. That was the worst impression of the three stooges that I’ve ever seen somebody do and it’s unfortunate. So brutal. I feel bad for them. I think they were going to love injury jokes but I got to tell you he’s hurt and it’s brutal. He’ll come back healthy but there was just a second a split second where he was kind of rotating himself on the floor like he was going to break out into a dance move and I got a little bit excited for that. Yeah, they I I can’t even joke about it. Um, but they were already going to get eliminated by the Knicks, I think. So, I don’t even think I’m not even saying that that’s going to be excuse that Knicks were going to win the series almost. I think almost for sure. Uh, Boston was like kind of imploding. Now, that’s a team that’s already really was already absolutely up against it financially and now they just can’t contend. So, they’re going to they might be in like mini blow up blow it up territory in the short term. They’re like they can’t contend without Tatum even in a diminished East because the East if Giannis gets traded to the Spurs. I mean, the East is going to terrible. Like the West is gonna be an absolute buzzsaw. And the East is going to be like the I mean the Knicks, what a run out for the Knicks. Like I I it’s like good for them. I’m actually We’re not Knicks haters. I know. Whatever. People don’t like that. I don’t really care. The I just don’t I can’t sit around and like be mad at the like hate the Knicks. It’s like not worth it. But if you hate the Knicks, the Knicks have gotten this is like the sickest alltime run. Like male just turns it absolutely on in the playoffs. He’s looked really good. And then the Nets get a eighth pick and now the Knicks are like the favorites to go to the finals. Um even if it might be close against the Pacers because they’re going to close it out against Boston. So it’s like and they might be staring at a window next year where they’re like just the best team in the East because now Boston’s going to be Boston’s going to be worse. Milwaukee is not going to have Giannis. Cleveland will still be good and then but like who else like who else? And so they’re going to have like maybe have clear paths to like like good playoff runs anyway. So, the Knicks just got the Knicks got it all. So, um I don’t even know where I was going with this. Okay. So, yes. So, I think the balance of the power is going to shift. I do think that some of these I think that some of these team I think the Boston could be in like mini mini blowup mode. Not full blowup mode, mini blowup mode. Um I think you’ll maybe you see some of these East teams make a little bit of a push because they’re going to think it’s a little bit more wide open. Maybe you see the Raptors try a little harder next year. They got, you know, maybe the Magic get healthy and they feel like they can make a push. The Pistons actually could be really interesting because the Piston gives the Knicks everything they could and like I don’t know the Pistons could have won that series and they might tell themselves hey we’re kind of in a window now especially in the East. So I think those teams are going to go that way. I think conversely you’re going to see a situation in the West where especially if Giannis lands over here you’re like well OKC no matter what still going to be awesome. KD is going to land on one of these teams like maybe Houston. Lakers are still going to have Donic and LeBron almost for sure. Jokic is still going to be there in Denver. Minnesota’s still gonna have Ant and like Julius Randles look really good. I mean Minnesota could go to the finals here. Um maybe the Warriors are in kind of like blow it up mode. Maybe the Grizzlies kind of trying to decide what they do with Jaw. Like I like there there’s going to be some other fallouts here for these teams that are just going to look around the landscape and be like we got no chance. No chance. Like what are the Blazers going to do? They got no chance. Phoenix we already know is kind of a mess. Mavericks get Cooper flag. Kings are kind of a mess now. Like there’s going to be a shift here. I I’m I’m just now just lit literally just listing all the teams, but the um there’s going to be a shift in the NBA here that the Nets probably can capitalize in some way of these teams trying to get out of their current situations and save a little dough knowing they can’t compete. I think there is like a world where like the Nets can kind of slide into the slide into the mentions and do something and and that’s what and again this is not the sexy version of this month leading up to the draft or this offseason upcoming season but when these other teams start to make those and you mentioned a team like Detroit like I think that they’re a real wild card like hey they they they feel like little inexperienced young we make a little one more big splash here and all of a sudden in an east that will open up even if the Knicks are the new top dog in the Eastern Conference when the dust settles. Okay, that means we could be in the Eastern Conference Finals potentially taking on that team to try to go to an NBA finals. So, all these teams are going to be making moves and I think probably something we can do leading well as we wind down our time and project forward is think about like how much shakeup could we see and what are some of those names right from all these teams we’ve mentioned like Kaminga in the past. Hey, that’s a restricted free agent. You just go out and make that decision if you want to. There’s a couple other guys, including, by the way, a very low-end one that I’m just saying now, so it’s on the record in uh Santi Alama that I think would be an excellent restricted free agent for the Nets to just throw a little extra cash at this offseason. But that like who’s the players the Nets take the shot on because they because they have the runway to do it. You still have draft capital. You still have picks coming in. You know, next year’s going to be another big potential deep class for for your organization to look at depending on where you land, but do you find another diamond in the rough? they have those decisions in house to make around Zair Williams, right? And some of these other players they’ve looked at in years past. I It’s fascinating, man. Like the next month leading up to the draft could be conversations where we rethink about whether or not the Nets are definitely going to resign Cam Thomas or definitely think they need to keep Nick Claxton around for another year. Like, I don’t know. Maybe you just want to clear the deck and bring in more young talent to see what they have to go along with four first round picks, right? So, there’s just a lot of moving parts here. And I wouldn’t say that Shawn Marks in the past has been excellent in this area specifically, nipping around those other big trades and taking on some bad stuff, but I think this season, this offseason especially, could be more open for that if the runway is leading up to next year’s draft class. Hey, give me bad money for the details. Yeah, go ahead. He made his bones on it early with the DLO stuff and the MGO stuff. like like that’s where he like originally cut his teeth and then like they got away from it cuz like circumstances just didn’t really warrant it. But I think they kind of alluded to the idea that if it if it if it went this way, which it did, like there was a version of this where it goes this way. It’s like the lottery gods, such as they are, don’t help you, which they didn’t. Um, and you’re going to be on the outside looking in on all these superstars. In some ways, they might get like saved for themselves a little bit here with this because it’s like, okay, well, they don’t have everything lined up, so they’re just gonna have to take their medicine and just pick pick where they are and just I think for almost for sure what you see next year is like a more aggressive tank from them. Um would be my guess. I I think you’re going to see all like bets off with the tanky next year. And it’s not they’re not going to be influenced by Dallas getting the one pick here like that. you’re going to see them being like the young guys are playing 28 minutes a game and Cam Johnson’s going to play 28 like and we’re just we don’t care what happens like because I think that what they’re not going to want to do that I know everyone talks about this like the Nets lost like they know the math here they got handed again they got fed their medicine on where they finished in the standings and they ended up drafting eighth and that’s exactly pretty much where the odds said they were going to be and other results aside the EV bet was to bet them to draft seventh or eighth and that’s exactly that bet came in. So like I like there’s no other way to put it. I think we’re going to see a situation where they take a look around landscape. They’re like no chance have to just be super bad. Some of these other teams are going to just get better by extension. Like some of these teams in the East will just have to be better because the East itself will be weaker and right they just have a and they have a path to like really just kind of like totally bottom out. But um we’re going couple things. One I know we have fan take Friday. So throw in because we’re gonna start talking about 19 26 27. What are the Nets going to look at there? Is there potential that they could trade out in the back end of the first round when some team really likes a specific guy or do you end up with four young rookies that are all getting a bunch of run with a couple of crafty veterans still on this roster and you just let the season play out the way it’s going to in some ways like they did this past year. They let Jordi Fernandez take the reigns. It resulted how it resulted. Some guys got injured. Some guys were healthy. Some some games were won that should have been lost. And you pick the eighth overall in the draft, right? And organizationally, it just seems like they’re willing to have whatever their plan is, whether it always looks right or makes sense on the outside looking in, they’re doing their thing. And I don’t think that they’re influenced, as you said, by Dallas spiking the number one overall pick, by what other names are maybe going to come or go in the market potentially in trade discussions. I think this vision, man, ever since they blew up the Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, since that thing fell apart, I think there has been this version of how they see things. And at a minimum, it’s an organization that is not going to aggressively jump as hard as they did in the past because they just see a long-term value in not mortgaging yourself every two to three seasons and not maybe getting in the weeds sometimes. Cuz by the way, we can do an episode tomorrow about how things worked out better for other teams like the Houston Rockets, even after the Brooklyn Nets got back control of their own picks, right? So, it’s always this hodge podge crapshoot, man, when we think about the way things have gone for Brooklyn these last couple years. All right, so eighth pick locked. We will talk, like I said, we’ll talk a little bit more about the NBA landscape, a little more about the playoffs, and we’ll cover we’ll do a little bit more a couple deeper dives on some of these guys that could like Noah Enig who could fall into this eighth range. uh just so we’ve done due diligence on him and we’ll revisit some of these other guys too now that I think we can like kind of confidently talk about guys who we think probably will show up in this range as well. Make sure you subscribe to Lock Nets over on YouTube. Make sure you subscribe uh on the podcast feed as well. Look, Adam and I are off the podcast at the end of May, but the podcast feed’s still going and then and they’re they’re gonna it’s going to be in good hands here. It’s going to be in good hands. So, make sure you subscribe now. You’re going to be in good hands after we go. That’s the number one way you’re going to help the podcast. The most the more boy. Okay, everybody calm down. Everybody calm down. All right, everyone cal everyone settle down. Everyone settle down. Everyone settle down. You can do it. Everyone settle down. Adam’s got this. Everyone settle down. Please. Quiet. The quiet. Please quiet. Everyone quiet. The more time you spend contemplating what you should have done, you use lose. Damn. All right. No, everybody calm down. I was right in the middle of their back. All right, let’s put their hand up. The more time you spend contemplating what you should have done, you lose valuable time planning on what you can and will do. And that after all the weight is Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. aka Lwang. Who’s it? Aka who? Lwin. Wang. Lwing. Lil. One of the all time great poets. back in tomorrow talking more Brooklyn Nets basketball. Wool win. Wool win.

The guys look at why Nets fans should shake off the lottery vibes and focus on a number of positive paths moving forward for Brooklyn