The NBA Finals between the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder begin Thursday night at 8:30 p.m. ET on ABC. If they go the full seven games, the Finals won’t be done till June 22, three days before the NBA Draft, a week before free agency.
For the fans of the 28 other teams, it will be a time to measure their favorites’ promise against the reality of Indy and OKC, including how closely does their team’s blueprint follow that of the finalists, recognizing that in the first three years of this decade both teams didn’t make the playoffs. Their success while it may look dynastic now is new.
So where do the Brooklyn Nets stand? Nowhere near either conference champion. That’s for sure, but in terms of the plan — the blueprint — Sean Marks & co., starting with assistant GM B.J. Johnson, appear to be following the path laid out by the Pacers’ Kevin Pritchard and the Thunder’s Sam Presti.
“I think it’s a new blueprint for the league,” said Myles Turner, who’s played his entire 12-year career in Indianapolis. said after eliminating the Knicks. “I think the years of the superteams and stacking is not as effective as it once was.”
Indeed, no one knows that flaw better than Nets fans ... unless of course you’re a Suns fan.
Tyrese Haliburton and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander may have been acquired in trades, but the Pacers and Thunder are built primarily on the draft, development and depth. Haliburton and SGA may be their team’s avatar but team success is based on more than theirs.
The Nets have telegraphed their own post-superteam plan in multiple ways... in public comments and more importantly in their decision-making. The basic outline has been there to see now since the trade deadline in 2024 and of course the two trades of last June 24 which announced that a full rebuild was full-on.
Just this week, in the release of the second episode of SCOUT, the Nets media team’s self-explanatory docu-series, there was a clip from a January 2025 meeting at HSS Training Center where Johnson laid out where things stand.
“A lot of work went into what Brooklyn is going to be in the future. Regardless of who comes in here, we’re not going to change. They’ve got to adjust to us. Overall, that’s what it’s about here,” the assistant GM told his scouts. In other words, we tried to accommodate KD, Kyrie and James. It didn’t work. We’re going in a different direction.
Of course, things were laid out most clearly in the “baggy day” press conference back in April featuring Sean Marks and Jordi Fernandez, a day after the team lost its 56th and final game of 2024-25. Specifically, like Johnson, Marks established his reluctance to shoot for the moon and instant gratification again. The bar to changing his mind, Marks insisted, would be quite high.
“If you’re going after max-level talent, they have to automatically and absolutely change the trajectory of your team. This can’t be, ‘let’s go get this [guy] and lock ourselves into being a 6-7 seed.’ When we go all-in, you’re going in to compete at the highest level and contend.”
It is, as he said, about “sustainable” success delivered via long-term planning — “organically,” as the current term of art calls it, along with the prioritization on defense and the value of a good coach. Just like the Pacers and Thunder.
“I do think it’s important to have guys under contract that you control the contracts. You drafted them, you developed them, and they got to their second contract under your watch. It’s difficult when you’re trying to acquire max-level talent on max contracts. Those days are probably gone, of going and getting two or three max free agents. Those are going to be more difficult to do,” said Marks recognizing the role of the new CBA as well as his own experience.
He didn’t need to consult the roster building of the Pacers’ Pritchard or the Thunder’s Presti. He has his own experience.
At the core of the plan is the draft, as it was in particular with OKC. With the new CBA’s paralyzing sanctions, mixing rookie deals with their reasonable four-year guarantees — aka “value contracts” — with big deals, literally.
So many rotation players you will see in the Finals were acquired in the Draft, some the two teams’ own picks, some from trades. Jalen Williams, the Thunder’s second best player who was all-NBA and All-Defense this year, was taken with the 12th pick in the 2022 Draft, one of five firsts from the Paul George trade. Two key Pacers’ players, Andrew Nemhard, taken with a pick at the top of the second round, No. 31, and Ben Sheppard, taken with a 26th pick, were the result of picks from a trade for Victor Oladipo.
“It’s important to have some value contracts on your roster. How do we do that? We’ve got to draft right. I think our draft process has worked. We know what’s at stake this year. BJ has done a heck of a job the last several years running that draft process for us. He’s excited about what lies ahead over these next several years.”
Indeed, the Nets are proud of their draft record. It may not be as good as the Thunder, but considering they haven’t picked higher than No. 20 in 15 years, it’s been pretty damn good.
Now, with 31 draft picks — 15 firsts and 16 seconds — over the next seven drafts. Marks has surpassed Presti in husbanding draft assets. But he may still want more, particularly after dropping to No. 8 in the Draft Lottery.
There seems little doubt that the Nets want to move up, with a move to acquire a second lottery pick a priority, multiple league sources tell NetsDaily.
In a scenario laid out by one source, the Nets might offer the No. 19 pick, one of those acquired in the Mikal Bridges deal, and Cam Johnson to either the Raptors who hold the No. 9 pick or the Rockets who hold the No. 10. In addition, the Nets would take on a “bad contract,” not further defined.
That would provide them with two picks in the top 10, their own at No. 8 and either the the Raptors or Rockets pick. (This presumes that none of the teams would need picks to get Giannis Antetokounmpo, but his desire to leave the Bucks remains unclear.) The Nets pushed back on the specifics of that scenario, but no one is saying they don’t want to move up, not from No. 8 to No. 2, basically a pipe dream, but from No. 19 into the lottery, literally much less of a stretch.
Whether that specific deal came to pass — it is early in the process, it seems like the Nets current slate of picks at Nos. 8, 19, 26, 27 and 36 is likely to change by 10 p.m. on June 26, Day 2 of the Draft at Barclays Center when the second round ends.
The same league source we spoke with predicted, as has Bobby Marks and others, that the Nets are unlikely to “roster” all five picks, which would be a nearly unprecedented development burden, particularly with so many other young players already on the roster.
There have been reports, particularly by ESPN’s Jonathan Givony, that the Nets might also be willing to move Nos. 26 and/or 27, with Givony even reporting in his latest mock draft that the Nets are unlikely to pick at 27.
One thing the Nets don’t have is Paul George. who was key to both finalists roster-building, a star/superstar who they can trade for developing young players. The Nets did get five firsts, a first round pick swap and a high second for Mikal Bridges, similar to the haul the Thunder got for George, but not the young prospect who became SGA.
Both finalists have also shown serious development chops. Both Tyrese Haliburton and J-Dub were taken at No. 12, SGA at No. 11. Sure, Chet Holmgren was the overall No. 2 pick, but to turn three late lottery picks into All-NBA selections is worthy of applause.
Brooklyn has not had the success this rebuild that they did in their first go round, with Joe Harris, Spencer Dinwiddie, Caris LeVert and Jarrett Allen all developing into solid NBA players after early disses. Not to mention D’Angelo Russell who won an All-Star berth after being public dissed by none other than Magic Johnson. (One measure of success: All of them wound up earning better than $90 million in their NBA careers.)
Beyond the picks, the Nets have accumulated cap space at a level equal to what they’ve done with draft assets. The best estimate by those who track such things is that they will go into Draft Night with between $45 and $50 million in cap space. Draft Nights promises to be a second trade deadline this year,
“I think we need to be opportunistic,” Marks said when discussing the upcoming free agent period, noting that Brooklyn and New York will always be a draw. “In this market we’re always going to have various different free agents and opportunities thrown at us. Just simply being in a top five market in the league, that’s going to happen.”
The Thunder used opportunity to acquire Alex Caruso from the Bulls for Josh Giddey who after a tumultuous time in OKC wanted out. The Pacers were able to manipulate their draft and cap assets to bring in Pascal Siakam, the kind of addition that can turn a mediocre team into a contender. Both of those two were added when the time was right.
Marks didn’t lay out a specific schedule for the next couple of years but made it clear in April that the process will not be short. They will build with patience,
“We don’t want to get sped up.” he said, a strong indication that the rebuild is in its early stages. “We’ve talked multiple times about being systematic and strategic in how we build here. We know we have 15 first round picks in the next six, seven years; so there’s a lot of draft assets at stake. There’s a lot of cap room at stake, and how we use that, it’s probably too early to determine.”
Johnson was a bit more clear about a timetable. In the first episode of the SCOUT docu-series he was shown in a meeting from September of 2024 talking about where things stand and where they are going.
“We don’t look at this as just a one time thing, this could set us up for the next five, 10 years of our organization,” said Johnson. “So to me, personally, we get these next three years right***,*** we’re in a really good position.”
So, that seems to indicate a three-year plan starting in 2024-25. with contention by 2026-27. or else. The Thunder, after the slow departure of their own Big Three, were lost in the NBA wilderness for three years between 2021 and 2023, winning 22, 24 and 40 games before finally breaking through in 2023-24. Similarly, the Pacers won 34, 25 and 35 in those same three seasons. That should offer Nets fan some solace, some hope.
Then, there’s the head coach. Jordi Fernandez won kudos for his job as a rookie head coach this season, just as OKC’s Marc Daignault did in his first, dreadful season. Despite those tough times, the Thunder kept him on, encouraged him. Marks said in April he thinks that Fernandez will be a magnet, just as Daignault was.
“I think the sales pitch starts with the guy to my right,” said in April. “I think we’ve, we’ve talked about many players and what they’ve said about Jordi and his staff, I think that’s a huge sales pitch. They want to have coaches be up-front, honest with them, and they feel that, to be quite frank, he’s in it with us.”
The bottom line, of course, will be execution as it was for the finalists. Both have had a good share of bad luck, but their model sustained them. Just because the Nets have the biggest haul of draft picks, the biggest cache of cap space and a promising head coach does not guarantee success. Neither does a three-year plan, even if Marks did have similar success in his first three years as GM, going from 21 to 28 to 42 wins, enough to convince Durant, Irving and Harden to commit to Brooklyn.
Strategies change, though and what put the two small market team on the big stage may not be the ideal in a few years.
“Since I’ve been in the league, the NBA has been trendy,” said Turner. “It just shifts, but the new trend now is kind of what we’re doing. OKC does the same thing: Young guys get out and run and defend. And use the power of friendship is how they call it.”
Thursday night will be the last steps in both Indiana and OKC’s path to the O’Brien Trophy. Nets fans have to hope it will be well trodden.