Everyone knew — or should have known — that when the Brooklyn Nets drafted five players in the first round — at Nos. 8, 19, 22, 26 or 27 — back in June that development was going to be different. For one thing, no team had ever tried it before. For another, all but one of the five seemed to be cut from the same cloth: point guards or point somethings although the Nets kept saying pundits and fans should think outside the box.
“The scouting work that we’ve done on these guys throughout not just this
year but leading up to this year would lead us to believe it’s a versatile class, right? They can play multiple positions;” said Sean Marks in his post-draft media availability. “As Jordi (Fernandez) just mentioned, multiple ball-handlers. I think to be able to come in here and limit guys and say ‘you can only fit into this category or this position,’ you’ve heard all the cliches, position-less basketball and so forth. But you want high IQ guys. That’s what we’ve got here.”
With the sixth month anniversary of the Draft approaching next week, no one is (yet) giving the Nets an “A” for the Draft, but things are going well or well enough in the development game, particularly when you consider that three of them, Nolan Traore (sixth), Ben Saraf (eighth) and Egor Demin (11th) are among the the youngest players in the NBA this season and playing on the league’s youngest roster in years.
In any development scheme, whether one player or five, there’s a lot of two steps forward, one step back (or the reverse) and bad games followed by good ones (or the reverse) and the constant, shuttling of the Flatbush 5 from Brooklyn to Long Island. No, it won’t be linear and as one insider noted to us, don’t be surprised if the best rookie this year isn’t the best rookie over the course of their Nets career.
ALL that said, there are encouraging signs and they keep showing up in the boxscore and elsewhere. Demin, whose toughness is regularly underrated by fans, went this week from playing arguably his worst game vs. the Dallas Mavericks to unquestionably his best vs. the Milwaukee Bucks in a two-day span. It followed a stern warning from his head coach that he had to play better or lose minutes. Meanwhile the Nets last pick, at No. 27, Danny Wolf, has been a revelation to fans and is currently leading the entire 2026 Draft class in Net ratings. He’s not Cooper Flagg or Kon Kneuppel or V.J. Armstrong but he was taken 20 picks after them.
Neither Demin nor Wolf are a finished products, but there’s at least a sense they’re going to be fine. Will Powell be the third rookie to establish themselves? Like Demin, he was the subject of criticism by Fernandez following the Nets loss to the Mavs. Fernandez cited Powell’s “readiness to play” and more importantly limited his play to 2:41 in the first quarter.
“These young guys need to understand how important every minute you play is,” Fernandez said. “If the intentions are there, I’m completely fine. But if the mistakes are from easing into the game, that’s not how we do it here.”
Tough love … that turned out to be requited.
Like Demin, Powell responded well, scoring 13 points, tallying four rebounds, three assists, and one steal against the Giannis Antetokounmpo-less Bucks in the franchise’s biggest blowout ever, 45 points. In fact, Powell led the team with a +/- rating of +31.
He also said that he saw his head coach’s critique as a positive development.
“It was obviously some of the things I’ve heard before with my player development coach and even when I was younger, going through AAU,” Powell told Bridget Reilly of the Post after practice on Tuesday. “I respect him [Fernández] for that. It just shows that he cares, not only about me as a basketball player but as a human being.
“At the end of the day, it’s basketball. There’s ups and downs. I think it’s just important to stay levelheaded,” Powell added.
He also noted that he and Demin had a follow-up conversation between themselves about how they can improve! The Nets love those high-character guys for a reason.
Fernandez wasn’t around Tuesday night for the big blowout and his rookies’ acts of on-court contrition. He was home sick with the flu, but he had high praise for Powell’s performance Wednesday, saying the family, sick as they were, had gathered around the TV to watch the two take his words to heart.
“I think they both did a great job. We knew that that was in them,” Fernández said of Powell, now 20, and Demin, still 19. “But it’s not just to do it again but sustain it for a long run and do it better. The NBA is a tough business, a tough schedule at times. Whatever it is you gotta keep doing it every night and when you’re 19, the only thing that you know is that you don’t know. … Our guys care and we know how much they care, especially these two kids. They came back and they did what was best for the group and their performance was up to our standards.”
The team’s oldest player, 29-year-old Terance Mann, similarly emphasized that everyone, particularly the rookies, needs to understand that the non-linear aspect of player development.
“Every game isn’t going to be perfect for them. We tell them that all the time,” Mann said. “We tell them that all the time, just go out there and give a ton of effort. We try to lead by example and they’ve been following. It’s been great to see, especially the last game. Big bounce-back game for Egor and Drake.”
Demin said there are lessons to be learned from his last two games.
“All of it is a process,” Dëmin said. “Obviously, I want to do better in every game, but sometimes, there’s days like that, and I’ve just got to really watch film, understand what I did wrong and what I could do better, talk to the coaches and talk to players and learn from it and go to the next one. Because obviously, it’s a lot of games, and I haven’t even done one season yet. So I’m really trying to learn how to get over games like that into the next ones.”
He’ll have plenty of time. By all accounts, the Nets are a positive group, the rookies close-knit, as this video of Powell tweeted out by the team’s official site shows…
As the season goes on, we’ll have a better idea of how the Flatbush Five will work out. There will be a lot of losses along the way (Demin admitted Tuesday that’s been an issue for him) and some more coaching critiques, but so far, there’s evident potential and when you’re trying to develop five rookies and the league’s youngest roster, it’s not about this game or that, but progress. Powell and Demin know that.
- Drake Powell heard Jordi Fernandez’s tough love Nets message loud and clear – Bridget Reilly – New York Post
