NEW YORK — The Brooklyn Nets made some interesting decisions heading into the 2025 NBA Draft as they made history by using all five of their picks in the Draft. Brooklyn went from having four first-round picks to five after a multi-team trade with the Atlanta Hawks and Boston Celtics and general manager Sean Marks explained why the franchise chose to make all of those picks.
“We’ve never had three tables up here, so that shows you the size of the draft class, right? First and foremost, I want to welcome all these guys, these young men, to Brooklyn,” Marks said during the team’s press conference introducing their draft picks. Brooklyn selected five players in the Draft, including taking BYU guard Egor Demin with the eighth overall pick in the Draft.
“We’ve never had five picks in one draft, and to be able to draft all of them in a draft class that we just saw, that was unique and that was something that we want to take advantage of,” Marks continued. “Especially in our rebuild, where we see these young men fitting into our group and into our roster. So, it was about us capitalizing on the hand we were dealt.”
After taking Demin, the Nets went on to take four players who have varying degrees of upside: French guard Nolan Traore (19th overall), North Carolina forward Drake Powell (22nd), Israeli guard Ben Saraf (26th), and Michigan forward Danny Wolf (27th). One of the main takeaways from Brooklyn’s draft was how much they were invested in ball-handlers while also not packaging some of their picks for other moves.
Heading into the Draft, there were many who believed that the Nets would be trading some of their lesser picks to achieve some other goal, but it seems like they followed their plan all along. “What a lot of our scouting department and did all year long, the work they put in, we felt very confident about not only this class, but these men that we’re able to put in front of you right now. So, it’s exciting for us,” Marks explained.
