NEW CHAPTER: The Brooklyn Nets’ Two-Year Tank Is FINALLY Over | Was It A Success? Summer Objectives?
Erik Slater and Lucas Kaplan reflect on the Nets’ two-year tank and offer their top takeaways from the 2025-26 campaign.
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6 Comments
What was your top takeaway from the Nets' two-year tank? What are you looking forward to most as they turn the page?
Glad the season is over. They need to get veteran point guard to lead the offensive next year. Someone like CJ McCollum helping the offense and being the coach on the court goes long way for player development. Nolan and Wolf are best suited coming off the bench. Egor needs to work on going through the paint and finishing through contact. Powell and Saraf need to stay in the G league next year. They weren't ready to play in the NBA this year. If the nets don't get top 5 pick I would try to get Zion from the pelicans. Nets can rehabilitate him and build up his value.
Here is an idea: we would have been better off if we did not tank. A good GM – something we lack – would have been free to construct a competitive club. We might have landed somewhere between the tenth and fifteenth pick. Do we know that Boozer will be better than Ament? Tanking is lazy. No one in the front office needs to pay much attention to where talent is hiding on other teams. I watched THE PROCESS in Philly. It did not accomplish much. Our five picks? I see maybe two fringe players and at least three busts. This is not surprising because finding one gem with five middling picks is not easy. I see what Boston did with their roster this year as a better way to build a decent team. Let a good GM cook.
Teams have been fined this season for tanking. The reason that the Nets didn't get fined for that is because there is no plausible reason to think that they did. They're the youngest team in the league consisting of a roster of motley spare players with a second year head coach. It was predicted before the season they were going to be awful which they obviously were.
I think the Nets should try to trade their 1st round draft pick to the Phoenix Suns for high upside center 19 year old 7'1" 250 lbs Khaman Maluach. He's more than worth it. His two starts for the Suns, at the end of this season, he had 14 rebounds in each game and was a force in the paint. He's never been injured in his professional career, which include outside of the U.S., or at Duke.
I’m happy with the moves the Nets have made in the past couple of seasons. They’ve recouped their draft capital, drafted players who I believe have real quality, executed a tank in a tough year, converted MPJ to a positive asset, and (most importantly) signed up a world class coach in Jordi.
People in the national media often like to make fun of the Nets (not sure why), but Marks and the FO have been doing the right thing: rebuilding from scratch with high-IQ players that can be part of a culture.