You’d be hard pressed to find a GM who’s as patient during the NBA season the way Sean Marks is. He’s rarely made significant mid-season trade unless the hand is forced. One with Philadelphia being particularly infamous.
He’s someone who would rather weigh options and flexibility during the offseason. For better or worse. And right now, it’s for the best. Something that’s also new for Brooklyn Nets fans.
Draft Day needs to be Marks’ Day. The organization did what it needed to do in its first year. They hired a good head coach and they lost enough games to enhance said flexibility, Indeed, this is the ninth time in ten drafts since 2016 that Marks has made a deal within 48 hours of the Draft. He traded Brooks Lopez for D’Angelo Russell the day before the 2017 Drafted, added a second pick in 2021 to take Cam Thomas, then last year made the deals with the Knicks and Rockets that set up the rebuild.
Fans watched a confusing product this year. Good coach, short-lived fun moments. That’s about it. Then, the ping pong ball just didn’t bounce their way but that doesn’t means it’s a sunk cost.
They enter Wednesday with eighth, 19th, 22nd, 26th, and 27th in the first round and the 36th in the second. Not to mention enough cap space to facilitate an entire NBA offseason and a few tradable assets to complement any further moves.
As Bobby Marks (no relation) has said, most recently Tuesday afternoon, the Nets are the NBA’s “bingo board.” They can control who wins. That’s exactly what Brooklyn’s involvement with Atlanta and Boston was all about — Let the fireworks begin.
The Nets got their hands in a trade and wound up with Terrance Mann and the 22nd pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, helping facilitate a trade that sent Kristaps Porzingis to the Hawks. Brooklyn took on Mann’s contract and that was it.
That sounds like it’s gonna go one or two ways: Nets bundle picks/assets and move for a second pick in the top-10 or maybe Ace Bailey … or they draft these five and rock with them in Summer League and the regular season. Neither sounds bad and both would fulfil the prophecy entering the 2026-27 season.
Marks traded three future picks from various teams to Brooklyn’s 2025 and 2026 picks back from Houston. Either way, Jordi’s team isn’t going to tank, but they’re going to be young, very young. At the end of the season, they were the fourth youngest team in the NBA. Yes, they’re going to compete, and yes, they’re going to be homegrown. Brooklyn talent. The answer we await on the eve of Draft Night is whether it’ll be for a bonafide college start or they’ll be just a group of players.
Both are what the Nets want (and need) for more reasons than one.
“I do think it is important to have guys under contract that you control the contracts, so to speak. You drafted them, you developed them, and they got to their second contract under your watch,” said Marks at Brooklyn’s exit interviews.
That applies to a bunch of current Nets now, headlined by Cam Thomas.
“It’s difficult when you’re trying to acquire max-level talent on max contracts,” he continued. “Those days are probably gone of going and getting 2-3 max free agents and so forth. Those are gonna be more difficult to do, but I think it’s important to have some value contracts on your roster.”
Sounds like OKC’s approach. It’s the opposite philosophy of what most New York sports teams do and have done, particularly because of the chase to build it fast in a big market with distractions from media, fans, business, etc. Look at where that’s gotten them (excluding the Liberty).
The Nets haven’t won much lately but Marks and co. absolutely need to win Draft Night. Whatever it takes.
“The war room this year is going to be an interesting one, to say the least, so it’s a little bit of uncharted territory,” Marks said in the team’s ongoing “SCOUT” video series. “It’s something we embrace, and we know exactly what’s at stake. We’ve got to get it right.”