A month ago at the All-In Summit in Los Angeles, Joe Tsai didn’t say the Nets were tanking, but he may as well have. Not that the Nets strategy is some sort of secret, but the Nets governor gave a strong hint of what’s about to happen this season.
“Well, I have to say that we’re in a rebuilding year,” Tsai said on the All-In podcast. “We spent all of our [2025] picks — we had five first-round draft picks this past summer.
“We have one pick in 2026, and we hope to get a good pick. So you can predict
what kind of strategy we will use for this season. But we have a very young team.”
No, he didn’t use the “T” word — the Nets prefer “being flexible,” but as Tsai noted Brooklyn’s strategy isn’t hard to predict: Get as high a pick as possible with their own pick, returned to the team as part of the June 2024 trade with the Houston Rockets. Sean Marks & co. are also expected to push for another first at the trade deadline. The reason is simple: at the moment, draftniks see at least four prospects with franchise-changing potential, Darryn Peterson, A.J. Dybantsa, Cameron Boozer and Nate Ament. Indeed, the top of the 2026 draft could be better than this year’s crop.
With a top pick, Brooklyn would have six players on rookie deals and as one league source told ND, controllable rookie deals — four years, the first two guaranteed — are increasingly valuable under the CBA if you’re looking to pay superstars at the top of your roster.
Privately, Nets insiders will tell you that there’s no dictate to lose games … and that’s not Jordi Fernandez’s way, but they do note the roster is young, with eight players 22 or under. Indeed it may be the NBA’s youngest ever. Everyone recognizes that, as Brian Lewis wrote Friday.
“Goals can stay within ourselves. We know what we’re playing for. But proving ourselves right more so than proving other people wrong,” said Wolf, who at 21 is the team’s fifth youngest player. “I think we’re the youngest team — I know we’re the youngest team in the NBA — so just continuing to learn and get better and grow together, that’s all we can ask for.”
Lewis also digs deep into the data to point out that relying on young point guards — the Nets have four players aged 19, 19, 19 and 22 who can play the position — is one surefire way to lose games.
Young lead guards lose, at least early. In the prior decade, 26 of 33 lottery point guards underperformed their draft slot per Win Shares on Basketball Reference. But in the past four years all 11 have, while the older guards started to impact winning once they began to mature.
Of course, that’s historical data and they have play the games whether in China or North America.
- What we learned in a first look at looming Nets tank job – Brian Lewis – New York Post
