Official ‘24-25 Off-season Thread

[Decipher]

A glowing endorsement of our selections

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/25216269-2025-nba-draft-grades-every-round-1-pick

[FarBeyondDriven]

love the Traore pick. He'll be your starting point guard for a decade plus. That makes the Demin selection so puzzling. Both Demin and Traore need the ball in their hands. Traore can run an NBA offense right now, Demin can't. Maybe Demin can develop into a secondary playmaker at the wing spot like Avdija? Saraf was a reach and seemed unnecessary after the two previous selections. I like Wolf though and there's still plenty of talent still on the board for your pick in the 2nd so fingers crossed for you guys! Good luck

[Karate Diop]

I'm willing to give everyone a chance... I probably speak for most when I say, I haven't extensively seen these guys play (and neither have many of the so called pundits out there)... There were some swings, but I'd rather take them than play it safe.

[Paradise]

We are trading out the 36th pick to Phoenix.

[Netaman]

I'm willing to give everyone a chance... I probably speak for most when I say, I haven't extensively seen these guys play (and neither have many of the so called pundits out there)... There were some swings, but I'd rather take them than play it safe.

this is how i view it, and i think broadly most nets fans are overreacting. the 6 guys we all would have been excited by (who were in 90% of the mocks to nets) were gone in top 7. sucks but it happened, and unfortunately none of the trade ups we were expecting happened either because the 1 trade up that did happen was a ridiculous price (i doubt anyone would be happy if they had traded the 2026 first unprotected to move up 8 spots).

below I recapped 3 big boards from 3 of the best draft guys who I find to be pretty good (vecenie, hollinger, givony). at #8 their top remaining players respectively were jaku, boyles, maluach. I don't recall any nets fans being all that enthusiastic about any of those choices before the draft, and I dont imagine most would have been truly excited about any of them. Boyles has appeared to be the definition of a higher floor but lower ceiling prospect, Jaku ended up falling to 20 and they passed on him twice along with most of the league. Maluach was the obvious chalk name to most, but he is a project and I'm not sure how high the upside is there. A better version of brolo, if the shot hits? we all bought some hype on Essengue and to me that wouldn't have been a very different pick from Demin - a very young european born player with length and skills with ceiling but low floor.

So the Demin pick pissed everyone off, then they ignored that mostly the next 4 picks were pretty chalky. But really the lottery outcome and the first 7 picks ahead of the Nets are what messed things up. Which to those paying attention should have been somewhat foreseeable, and is why tanking is a very non-ideal strategy to start with.

if you add up all 5 of the picks the nets had, it equals 102. if you go by the 3 guys big boards i mentioned, they ended up pretty close to on par with value. almost exact on Hollinger's board and most off on Vecenie's board since he was lowest on Demin.

Vecenie = 2 highest on board were jaku (7), boyles (8)
Demin = 26,
Traore = 22,
Saraf = 28,
Powell = 34
Wolf = 14

Combined value = 124

Hollinger = 2 highest at #8 Boyles (6), Essengue (7)
Demin = 9
Traore = 28
Saraf = 15
Wolf = 26
Powell = 27

Combined value = 105

Givony = 2 highest on board were maluach (#7), essengue (#9)
Demin = 11
Traore = 23
Wolf = 25
Powell = 29
Saraf = 30

Combined value = 118

im excited to see what jordy can do with these guys and im excited by the fact that they picked so many PG's you have to think based on the law of averages at least 1 of them will work out and perhaps even be a clear starter level player to build around by the end of the year. if that guy + camT can show to be a real backcourt, along with some other interesting wing/big man pieces, the roster will look a lot better to go bigger game hunting with next offseason (be it draft or FA/trades).

[Paradise]

Lol I laugh when I see so many complaining when we took on Caris LeVert with a broken foot at 20th and he was supposed to be projected to be 38th or 40th.

We took Jarrett Allen at 22nd when he was projected to go Top 14 and slid because he was “too nice and loved computers”. Some of these things are nonsense to blow smoke.

Nolan, Egor and Wolf will fit in just fine and they will develop just fine. The fact all of them play a specific style of basketball confirms what we are looking to do.

Can’t be bitching and moaning about it when it was already understood that Jordi has ALOT of influence on the draft process with Sean. Watch the pre-draft documentary.

You don’t see Aaron Wiggins, Jaylen Williams, Jaylin Williams, Kendrick Williams, AJ Johnson as guys you’d be interested in drafting high but they all just won OKC it’s first championship.

[Papi_swav]

At first I was disappointed and underwhelmed. But looking more into it I think we nailed it. I was really upset we reached for Demin, i thought we could of got him at 19 but reading more into the rumors it seemed like he had a great workout and he moved up in mocks projecting to go 11-15. He looks like he's going to be a really good player, he has a picture perfect form on his shot and he used his big body and long arms really well. He's kind of slow footed but he knows how to get to his spots like Luka and Giddey. I think Giddey is a really good comparison for him, but I think he'll def have a better jump shot, he's going to have some triple doubles.

Traore is a really good pick, the dude can flat out score and he has a knack for finding his way into the paint. He kind of reminds me of a Tony Parker but he can also pass. He definitely has 20/10 potential if it all works out, he does have great skills in todays NBA.

I don't know much about Powell but he looks like a typical 3&D player with room to grow offensively. Scouts say he's the best athlete in the draft and a terrific defender. He reminds me of early Iman Shumpert to me but also has a little Jimmy Butler in him. He should be rotation player in the NBA eventually.

Ben Saraf I've been hearing the name all year and how he plays like Manu. From the highlights I can def see the comparison but to me he's a little slow footed so he'll have to use his craftiness. What helps him is that he's a lefty and has a pretty game, I think he will eventually be a solid player but it might take him a little while to put it together.

Im ecstatic we got Wolf. This dude can flat out play and I was always puzzled that mocks never had him high on draft boards the whole year when he was CLEARLY one of the best players in all of college ball. I've seen a good amount of him playing and he fits the mold of a Jokic/Sengun type of player. This dude is going to be an offensive juggernaut. He can pass, rebound and score on every level, the dude shoots step back and side steps 3s at 7 feet !!! It never made sense to me that he was never projected as a lotto pick because he's better than Queen and most of the guys drafted before him. The dude looks like a shooting guard outt here the way he moves, he's a 7 footer that is very fluid and doesn't look doofy like other big men. I believe this guy is going to be an exceptional player for a long time.

I think we hit on this draft guys. Trust me, I was upset at first because I thought we were going to trade up or maybe trade one of our picks for a future pick(s) but all these guys have really high potential. I know you guys are looking at 3 point shooting percentages but that doesn't always show the whole picture, all of these guys can shoot and they took alot of shots off the dribble which will hurt their percentages but they can all definitely shoot it no doubt . All these guys can score, shoot, pass and rebound and are multi skilled players. My only concern is on the defensive side

[Decipher]

Simple fact is that we were never going to be competitive next season unless lightning struck twice and a few superstars decided to team up in Brooklyn

Marks has a good drafting record with mid range picks and Jordi seems to be a very good coach so hopefully at least one of the rookies becomes a good NBA starter

[Netaman]

Bunch of great posts on this page. 1 other important thing to remember, if 2 of these 5 become starters that's a MASSIVE win.

if 1 of these 5 becomes an all star, again MASSIVE win.

reminder, previously marks made 6 first round picks total - levert, allen, musa, cam t, clowney, whitehead. claxton was first pick of 2nd round. so he has been closer to 50% starters over his career and gotten at least 1 borderline all star.

[Netaman]

by the way, here are a few interesting snippets from Hollinger. I find him to be very hit or miss, but he is different.

#9 Demin

For much of the year, Demin seemed reluctant to put pressure on the paint and would turn every pick-and-roll into a cross-court pass to the opposite corner, regardless of what the defense did. It’s cool that he can hit the opposite corner reliably in pick-and-roll, but would you please turn the corner once or twice?

However, his level of play picked up noticeably late in the year, including three double-figure games in the NCAA Tournament. Demin, however, still needs to become more aggressive as a scorer and has to work on his shot; he made only 27.3 percent from 3 and 69.5 percent from the line.

Demin’s offense might have been disappointing, but I’m surprised more people aren’t talking about his defense. He could play a half-step farther off guards than most wings because of his height and length and was able to close late and challenge shots very effectively.
https://static01.nyt.com/athletic/uploads/wp/2025/05/08215109/Demin-isoD.mp4

Even when he guarded more closely, he wasn’t necessarily at a disadvantage. Watch here as he shoots the gap for a deflection and then checks an opposing point guard for six dribbles before forcing a miss at the end.

Again, as with Bryant, players of this archetype are difficult to acquire, and you can play multiples of them at once. Demin can dribble, pass and guard the perimeter; if he becomes any kind of shooting threat at all, he should be a valuable player.

#15 Saraf

Ignore the shooting motion for a second and just look at everything else. Saraf is a big guard who plays hard, defends, makes good decisions on the ball and can run an offense. He's an instinctive player who gets his hands on a lot of balls (2.6 percent steal rate), and he and his teammate Essengue above are already two of the best players on a team that may win the German league. (Ratiopharm will be one of the top two seeds in the German playoffs, which start next week, and the team is likely to keep Saraf and Essengue from coming to the Draft Combine.) It's pretty easy to envision a floor for him as a serviceable backup guard, with a much higher potential ceiling if he can consistently make perimeter shots.

I can't get Saraf higher than this because I can't ignore the shooting, a wonky lefty motion that has the benefit of a high release point but is hard to believe beyond that; he might not ever generate more than 30 percent accuracy from distance without some modifications. (Saraf shot 29.4 percent from 3 and 72.8 percent from the stripe this year.) Getting him to a team with a good shooting coach and cleaning up his release will be critical. It's doubly important because Saraf isn't explosive or athletic enough to be a plus finisher inside the arc; he has to be able to make some jumpers off the dribble to keep defenses honest and leverage his ability to snake pick-and-rolls.

#26 Wolf

A late bloomer who started his career at Yale (I guess he couldn’t get into Virginia), Wolf has a lot of promise as a 7-footer who can handle the ball, but he’s not a true center, and I question how much he’ll play with the ball in his hands at the NBA level. While he occasionally cooked on drives, he was also extremely turnover-prone (6.0 miscues per 100), and some of the passes were atrocious. Wolf also doesn’t check the “stretch big” box yet; he only made 33.4 percent from 3 and a horrific 59.4 percent from the line.

Defensively, Wolf didn’t have huge rates of blocks and steals, but his defensive tape looked pretty solid. Teams tried to get him switched onto guards with regularity, but Wolf rarely conceded blow-bys and used his length to get late challenges on stepback jumpers. As a secondary shot blocker, his 4.6 percent block rate while playing mostly at power forward is pretty impressive.

Watch here , for instance, as he gets Purdue’s Braden Smith on a switch with a live dribble, cuts off his first driving angle and blocks his stepback jumper.

Overall, Wolf is a player if the 3-point shooting comes around, and the ability to steal some minutes as a junk-ball center is a nice bonus. This is around the part of the draft where the gamble feels worth it.

#27 Powell

Powell is 6-5 but measured with a 7-foot wingspan and blasted off a 37 1/2-inch no-step vertical at the combine, the highest of the camp by 4 inches. That’ll get people’s attention.

Powell looks like somebody who should be a good defender, but the numbers and tape didn’t bear that out. He had a pretty low steal rate for this archetype of player (only 1.4 thefts per 100 possessions in ACC play), and the tape showed him as something of an irrational confidence guy on that end; he’d crowd guards like he was prime Jrue Holiday but get cooked on the first step and end up chasing the play. Since everyone loves Cooper Flagg highlights, here’s an example.

There might be some easy technique fixes that could help Powell along; certainly, his late-play shot challenges were NBA-caliber. However, other question marks pop up from his lone season. For somebody with his length and athleticism, the rebounding is shockingly bad (7.5 percent rebound rate in conference), and the offense is a work in progress.

That said, Powell is a threatening off-ball player without needing to self-create a lot of shots, just because he’s such a threat to rise up and score in the paint on cuts or catch-and-gos. He made 59.2 percent of his 2s, and the 3-point shooting (36.2 percent on low-ish volume) was respectable enough from an 18-year-old freshman.

Powell has a wide outcome variance, but his wingspan and athleticism are rare enough that he’s good developmental play late in the first round.

#28 Traore

The French league isn’t good enough for teams to use high picks on players who only post middling numbers over there, something the league still doesn’t seem to have totally figured out. Traoré, however, seems like a case where the scouts have it right, moving him sharply down boards after a disappointing season in France. (His strong performance at the 2024 Hoop Summit initially had scouts pegging him for the lottery.)

Shooting, in particular, remains in issue; Traoré now has a pretty large sample over two seasons that suggests he’s quite below average in this area. In that time, he’s shot 30.6 percent from 3 on 385 attempts and 73.5 percent from the line. It’s not like he was anything special inside the arc, making 46.7 percent of his 2s. More encouragingly, he had a high assist rate with two dimes for every turnover. Overseas scorekeepers don’t hand out assists like Halloween candy the way they do over here, so a 3.11 pure point rating for a teenage point guard in a European pro league is impressive.

Traore’s anemic rebound rate at this level (5.5 percent) and his relatively low steal rate (1.7 percent) also stand out as concerning; maybe he’s just not as athletic as we thought. On the other hand, if the shooting turns the corner, he’s a big point guard (6-3 with a 6-8 wingspan) who can run an NBA offense at a backup-level at worst.

[Eatgreenz]

love the Traore pick. He'll be your starting point guard for a decade plus. That makes the Demin selection so puzzling. Both Demin and Traore need the ball in their hands. Traore can run an NBA offense right now, Demin can't. Maybe Demin can develop into a secondary playmaker at the wing spot like Avdija? Saraf was a reach and seemed unnecessary after the two previous selections. I like Wolf though and there's still plenty of talent still on the board for your pick in the 2nd so fingers crossed for you guys! Good luck

I wouldn't say that BYU runs a pro style offense one of the reason top recruits go there. Egor was running pro sets