The Nets are firmly in the draft lottery picture with 36 games left, and their position is becoming clearer by the day.
Brooklyn currently sits fourth in the lottery order, per Tankathon. At 12-34, the Nets are on a seven-game losing streak and are 1-9 over their last 10 games, results that have pushed them into the upper tier of the lottery without dropping all the way to the bottom. As things stand, Brooklyn holds a 45.2% chance of landing a top-four pick and an 11.5% chance of winning the lottery.
The three teams below Brooklyn (Indiana, Atlanta, Sacramento) all carry 14.0% odds to land the No. 1 pick and a 52.1% chance to move into the top four. The Nets sit 1.5 games behind that group in the loss column, close enough that a continued freefall would noticeably improve their odds, but far enough that the separation still matters. That’s what’s at stake for the franchise.
It almost goes without saying, but draft position carries real consequences in the NBA’s current collective bargaining landscape. Teams across the league no longer have many ways to spend their way out of mistakes, placing a premium on elite talent found at the top of the draft. History suggests that window narrows quickly once you fall outside the top five.
The 2026 class, headlined by Darryn Peterson, AJ Dybantsa, Cameron Boozer, Caleb Wilson and Kingston Flemings, is as elite as it gets. For the Nets, this is the type of draft that can change the direction of a rebuild, the kind where one player becomes the answer to a lot of long-term questions all at once.
Brooklyn has ample flexibility and future assets, but it still needs a centerpiece. There are young players on the roster, like Egor Dëmin, Noah Clowney and possibly Michael Porter Jr., who project as long-term contributors and rotation pieces, but none who clearly profile as the kind of player you build the next phase around. A top-five pick offers the most direct path to finding that type of player. The later you pick, the riskier that selection becomes.
Draft capital only matters if it turns into real talent. Brooklyn went years without control of its own picks, which made it harder to build the roster naturally. Now that those picks are back in hand, the goal is to make the most of them. A spot near the top of the draft opens more doors, whether that means taking a player, sliding around on draft night or holding an asset other teams actually want.
Timing matters, too. The Nets’ young players are growing on similar timelines, and a high draft pick fits right into that window. It lets the organization keep building without rushing big decisions or locking into a direction before everything is fully clear.
The lottery is obviously still unpredictable, if last year’s results weren’t enough to hammer that point home. Even teams at the bottom don’t fully control the outcome. That uncertainty is exactly why positioning matters. The higher a team sits in the lottery order, the fewer bad outcomes it’s exposed to when the results come in.
For Brooklyn, the rest of the season won’t decide everything, but it will shape the range of possibilities. Where the Nets finish will affect how much control they have once the season ends and the focus turns to the draft.
