“Today was better. Yesterday was worse. Nobody knows how it’s going to be tomorrow, and there’s no perfect days.”
When a couple of reporters told Egor Dëmin in the Brooklyn Nets locker room that Russians have a bit of a reputation for speaking very colorful English, the 19-year-old rookie scoffed. Dëmin insisted that he, like most Russians, was terrible at language acquisition (though obviously better than most Americans), and that his English was embarrassing.
I politely disagree.
Welcome to the third edition of NetsDaily’s rookie report. With the G League season now underway and Drake Powell healed, we are no longer desperate for content. Let’s get started.
Egor Dëmin
Season stats: 10 GP, 20.8 MPG, 7.1/3.2/3.3 slash line, 39.3/37.5/83.3 shooting splits (55.8 TS%). 2.8 TO + 3.1 PF + 1.9 stocks (stl+blk) per game.
Stats this week: 3 GP, 25.3 MPG, 11.3/3.7/5.0 slash line. 12-of-25 from floor, 8-of-17 from deep. Five turnovers, five fouls, two stocks.
He looks better than I thought he would at this point in the year, especially considering he was not a full participant in on-court activities from the end of July to the tail end of the preseason, battling a plantar fascia injury. Yes, he moves painfully slow when closing out or trying to fight through ball-screens, and we didn’t see the deflections and overall defensive activity we saw in week #2.
But beyond a nice drive here and a smooth step-back there, an encouraging trend is in its fetal stage. Dëmin has only played 208 career minutes, but when he is on the court, the Brooklyn Nets take nearly 13% more of their attempts from three. That is an 100th percentile mark in the NBA, per Cleaning the Glass, meaning no other player in the league has such a dramatic effect on his team’s 3-point rate. (Cleaning the Glass)
Here are the caveats:
It’s literally 208 minutes
Egor has largely played without Cam Thomas (who ranks in the 0th percentile in the same stat)
Brooklyn also takes way fewer attempts at the rim with Dëmin on the court. A healthy shot profile doesn’t just mean shooting threes
I hear you loud and clear, but this was part of the sell for Dëmin as an offensive prospect. He may have plenty of individual flaws, but the 2024-2025 BYU Cougars had the fifth best offense in Division I basketball last season with Dëmin as the high-usage primary ball-handler, running tons of spread pick-and-roll. BYU was far better with him on the court vs. off, and as a team, they had a 3-point attempt rate ranking in the 93rd percentile.
After just ten NBA appearances, it’s easy to see why. Dëmin is an eager kick-out passer, firing a catch-and-shoot opportunity to a teammate at the first sign of help. Sometimes he’s overeager, and you want him to just try and drive by that help. Sometimes you wish he was as audacious passing the ball to the rim as he was spraying out to shooters. But Dëmin can clearly create 3-point opportunities for teammates, though whether he’s the best in the NBA at it remains to be seen.
Though he scored a career-high 16 points against the Toronto Raptors on Tuesday, I was most impressed with the sequence he had against the New York Knicks on Sunday. Sound on:
It’s early. It is so early. But it’s okay to be positive.
Drake Powell
Season stats: N/A
Stats this week: 3 GP, 23.7 MPG, 9.0/2.3/2.7 slash line. 10-of-20 from floor, 5-of-10 from deep. Seven turnovers, seven fouls, four stocks.
Drake Powell turning his ankle immediately after entering in each of his first two games skews his season-long averages. I’ll probably just start putting per-36-minute averages soon, given all the garbage time minutes these Nets rookies seem likely to get (more on that later).
Anyway, Powell had a good week! The UNC product is truly a joy to watch out there, like if Bambi’s legs were too explosive for his own good. Powell will learn how to rein it in over the course of his NBA career, but given the history of the Brooklyn Nets’ refusal to employ truly athletic players, even that’s a thrilling proposition. He’s clearly gained the trust of the coaching staff, playing over 20 minutes in every game this past week, not to mention getting minutes in the season opener before he twisted that ankle.
Better yet, the Nets really put the ball in his hands when he enters the game. In Tuesday’s loss to the Raptors, Powell entered around the midway mark of the first quarter and immediately ran pick-and-roll/dribble-handoff action on his first four or five possessions. Hell yeah.
The 20-year-old is not afraid to try and beat his defender with the ball or take tough shots, though occasionally (like Dëmin) he can overreact to the first sight of help defense. Selfishly, I want to tell him, “Unless you’re about to run somebody over, keep going!”
There’s a general tone of surprise when people discuss Powell, that despite some chuckle-worthy rookie moments and a loose handle, he seems to have an offensive game that belies his low usage rate as a UNC Tar Heel. He doesn’t make jaw-dropping reads in the pick-and-roll, but he makes pretty stable ones. He sees the roller, he sees the shooters around the arc; the phrase “tunnel vision” definitely doesn’t come to mind, and he certainly doesn’t look overwhelmed by everything going on.
Some deep-in-the-weeds draft folks pointed out that in the summer of 2023, before Powell’s senior year of high school, he was the lead dawg on his (high level) AAU team before Duke commit (and likely 2026 NBA Draft entrant) Isaiah Evans joined the squad and took plenty of his usage. I’m sure the Nets scouts highest on Powell fired up that footage and liked what they saw.
Here’s a nice sequence against the Knicks, where the #22 overall pick hangs in the air to finish with authority, and on the next possession he probes the lane, sees a weak-side defender pinching in, and zips it across the court…
That pass ain’t making SportsCenter Top Ten, but it’s nice to see. Now, tightening up that handle will be a big challenge for Powell; Nets fans have already seen him have to pick it up after a rogue bounce or dribble it off his foot. Squint just a little, though, and you can see a future for Powell as an off-guard who cuts, defends, and runs the floor while making open threes (5-of-10 this week) and is capable of handling like 18% usage.
Ah, maybe we shouldn’t box him in just yet.
Danny Wolf
Season stats: N/A
Stats this week (G League): 2 GP, 32.5 MPG, 20/12/2 slash line. 14-of-35 from floor, 3-of-12 from deep, 5-of-6 from the line. Eight turnovers, nine fouls, six stocks.
Danny Wolf has gotten some garbage time run in a Brooklyn Nets uniform, but nothing resembling real tick. When Day’Ron Sharpe was ruled out for Tuesday’s game against the Toronto Raptors, it seemed like Wolf would slide in nicely to the backup center spot. But when Jordi Fernández was asked pregame if Wolf was in line for minutes, he said: “Obviously, Danny’s here, Ben’s here. So, excited for all these guys whether they play or not, but they all know that that next-man mentality is always important.”
I knew then that, barring injury, Wolf wasn’t gonna play for real. It’s not like he was great in his two G League games, particularly on the defensive end. He was fine guarding the ball on switches and the like, but had some surprisingly bad moments guarding the pick-and-roll and with his positioning/awareness off the ball, stuff below the standard for a 21-year-old big man.
Okay, he’s bad on defense. How much worse could it get than what the Nets are currently doing on defense?
To that, I would say … good point. I would assume defense is the main reason he didn’t get run against Toronto, but he’s 21 years old. It’s time to play him sooner rather than later, even if he does share the court with Nic Claxton or Day’Ron Sharpe.
Wolf did not seem pleased with his G League assignment. This isn’t based on a quote or even negative body language, but in two Long Island games, he had a mug on his face and he was looking to score the rock. Every time. Thus far, Long Island doesn’t seem to run as much offense through the hub as Brooklyn does with Claxton and Sharpe, so Wolf didn’t have a ton of opportunity to hit back-cutters, but still, 35 shots to four assists isn’t quite what I expected from him.
That being said, his best moves were delightful, particularly as a driver…
The post-ups were a bit more sluggish, though I don’t think this is particularly surprising to those that watched him in college. Wolf is down there to create offense, and if nothing else, it’s nice to see him force the issue. Hopefully he’s doing the same thing in Brooklyn soon enough.
Nolan Traore
Season stats: N/A
Stats this week (G League): 2 GP, 25.5 MPG, 13.5/1.5/4 slash line. 8-of-27 from floor, 1-of-8 from deep, 5-of-6 from the line. Eight turnovers, 11 fouls, zero stocks.
Don’t expect to see much of Nolan Traore on an NBA floor this year. At least until the Nets are in the most fiery throes of a tank-off. I’m not just going to rag on him in this column all season long, so here are the facts: He’s a skinny, 6’3” 19-year-old with a questionable jumper who did not light the LNB Élite on fire last season. The Nets knew this when they selected him with the #19 overall pick in June, so they likely figured that even in the best case scenario, Traore wasn’t going to be a productive NBA player immediately.
But my goodness is he far away. He is indeed a skinny, 6’3” 19-year-old with a questionable jumper, but I’m not sure what he does well right now, even on a G League floor. Committing eight turnovers and 11 fouls without a single stock isn’t a strong indicator of athleticism, but neither is getting your shot punched on a take like this…
There will be areas of improvement as the season goes on, and we’ll get into more specific concerns, like his handle in tight spaces, finishing packages, and off-ball defense, but in the short-term, just know that you won’t be seeing Traore in a Brooklyn Nets uniform too often.
Season stats: N/A
Stats this week (G League): 2 GP, 26.2 MPG, 18/3/3 slash line. 12-of-26 from floor, 2-of-10 from deep, 6-of-8 from the line. Nine turnovers, 3 fouls, four stocks.
Drafted Egor Dëmin 11 spots ahead of you is one thing, but ultimately not a huge deal. It’s gotta be a little odd for Traore though, that another 19-year-old point guard in Ben Saraf was drafted seven spots behind him and is currently outperforming him with Long Island.
Saraf isn’t lighting the G League on fire as of yet — that outside shot is a serious concern and he turned it over too often in his first two games — but he’s clearly going to be a valuable player when he suits up for Long Island. He scored 11 straight points in the fourth quarter of their victory in the season opener, and it was nice to see Saraf regain some confidence doing what he does best.
He had a rough start to his NBA career, getting benched after five inefficient games as the starting point guard. But the skills did not disappear overnight. Saraf shows an ability to get all the way to the rim, keeping his dribble alive well below the free-throw line and not committing to a shot/pass/pivot until the very last second. It’s not impossible to imagine a world where this skill covers up some of his below-average explosiveness as a driver, though he’ll need to diversify his finishing package.
Regardless, time in the G League should restore some of his confidence…
The need to promote him back to the Brooklyn squad isn’t as urgent as it is for Danny Wolf, two years his senior. But Saraf will probably be ready for more NBA minutes sooner rather than later. Even if he isn’t good in them, I don’t think he’ll be wildly overmatched like Nolan Traore, and it’s not like Egor Dëmin and Drake Powell demand so much usage that he can’t share the court with one or both of them.
A full rookie report! Couldn’t you just shed a tear?
Jordi Fernández’s next chance to play the rookies — everybody’s favorite topic of conversation — will come in NBA Cup action on Friday night, when the Brooklyn Nets take on the Orlando Magic down South at 7:00 p.m. ET.