When the Brooklyn Nets acquired the 22nd overall pick earlier this week as the third team in the Celtics-Hawks trade that sent Kristaps Porzingis to Atlanta, they suddenly found themselves with five of the 30 first-round picks going into Wednesday night.
Given no team had ever made five picks in the first round of an NBA Draft, it was widely assumed that Brooklyn would be involved in at least one, if not multiple, trades on draft night. They had plenty of ammunition to move up if they saw a prospect sliding they liked, or they could sell off a pick or two later in the first round to try and add more future assets.
Instead, even in a draft that saw a bunch of trades in the teens and 20s, the Nets made history by putting together the first five-man first-round class the NBA has ever seen.
|
8 |
Egor Demin |
PG |
BYU |
|
19 |
Nolan Traore |
PG |
France |
|
22 |
Drake Powell |
SF |
North Carolina |
|
26 |
Ben Saraf |
PG |
Israel |
|
27 |
Danny Wolf |
PF |
Michigan |
The Nets don’t have any plans to compete right away in 2025-26, and could, if they wanted to, roll out a five-man lineup of first-round rookies for the first time in NBA history at some point this season. The Demin pick raised some eyebrows, as he was not projected to go in the top 10 by many coming into the night, and they added two more lead guards (Traore and Saraf) and a point forward type in Wolf.
It will be fascinating to watch how the Nets navigate the rest of the offseason, as they could continue trading off veterans, with Nic Claxton and Cam Johnson undoubtedly garnering significant interest from other teams, and further push toward a youth movement.
In any case, the Nets can say they made a bit of NBA history on Wednesday night and fans have plenty of highlight tapes to study up on to get to know all of their new players.
