When the Nets re-acquired control of their 2025 and 2026 first-round draft picks last summer, they seemed to be telegraphing their expectations for the next couple of seasons.
The Nets had previously traded the rights to both picks — one via pick swap, the other as an unprotected first-rounder — to the Houston Rockets in their 2021 blockbuster for James Harden.
But in June, the Nets agreed to send a haul of future draft choices to Houston in order to make their 2025 and 2026 picks for themselves.
The unusual trade seemed to indicate the rebuilding Nets didn’t expect to be particularly competitive this season and envisioned themselves picking toward the top of the 2025 draft, where Duke freshman Cooper Flagg is the coveted prize.
Oddsmakers agreed, with some projecting the Nets to win fewer than 20 games. In the preseason, VegasInsider.com pegged the Nets for 21.5 wins — the fewest in the NBA.
But there’s a reason they play the games.
In their first season under head coach Jordi Fernandez, the Nets are 20-34. They entered the All-Star break as winners in six of their last seven games, putting them only 1.5 games back of the final spot in the Play-In Tournament.
But the recent surge has also reduced the Nets’ odds at landing the No. 1 pick to 8.2%, according to Tankathon — much to the chagrin of some fans.
“We do not care what they say about that,” Nets forward Cam Johnson said last week. “Listen, at the end of the day, the 15, 18 guys on his team have a job to do, and our job is to not try to get a draft pick. Our job is simply to win basketball games.”
Tanking would not have guaranteed the Nets the first pick. The NBA determines draft order using a lottery system that gives 14% odds to the teams that finish with the three worst records, and descending odds for the other 11 teams that miss the playoffs.
The Nets’ odds for the top pick, per Tankathon, are only the seventh best in the NBA. Their odds of getting a top-four pick are less than 35%.
Finishing with the No. 2 or No. 3 pick would be no small consolation prize in a year in which Rutgers freshmen Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey are also highly touted prospects.
In the next seven years, the Nets own 15 first-round picks, many of which stem from general manager Sean Marks’ trades sending Mikal Bridges to the Knicks; Kevin Durant to the Phoenix Suns; and Kyrie Irving to the Dallas Mavericks.
Four of those first-rounders are for the 2025 draft: the Nets’ own pick; the Milwaukee Bucks’ pick; the Rockets’ pick; and the Knicks’ pick.
Among them, the Nets’ own pick is the only one likely to land in the lottery. As it stands now, the other three picks have the Nets selecting at No. 19 via Milwaukee; No. 24 via Houston; and No. 27 via the Knicks.
Although they remain without a clear-cut superstar, the Nets entered the season flush with established NBA players, including Johnson, Cam Thomas, Dorian Finney-Smith, Nic Claxton, Day’Ron Sharpe, Dennis Schroder, Ben Simmons and Zaire Williams.
The Nets jumped out to a 9-10 start, and while they have since parted with Finney-Smith, Schroder and Simmons, they added another proven player in D’Angelo Russell in December.
Even with the recent turnaround, ESPN’s NBA Power Index gives the Nets only a 1.3% chance of making the playoffs.
“We have a plan in place and a vision of how we want to build this, and this is how we wanted to start,” Fernandez said last week. “Regardless of the wins and losses in the standings, we have other wins and losses for us as an organization.”
