The Brooklyn Nets are looking to add some new, young, talent in a few days. It’s only fair that they lost a dash of it this past week. After all, they were not only the youngest team in the NBA this past season. Sean Marks has said they were the youngest roster on any NBA roster in 20 years!
E.J. Liddell, who appeared in 26 games for Brooklyn during the 2025-26 season, officially signed a two-year deal with Greek club Aris B.C. who made a big deal of signing the 6’6” 25-year-old. Having signed a two-way
deal with the Nets this past autumn, he was set to be a restricted free agent this offseason. Instead, he’s opted to hit the road early.
“Thank you Brooklyn and Long Island for another year in this league,” Liddell wrote in an Instagram post in mid April. “It’s been a year full of growth and lessons that I will carry for the rest of my life. One thing I can say I learned is that through habits & discipline you forge a character rich with courage and peace.”
He’s unlikely to be the only one of the younger Nets from last season to move on. There were reports this past week from two NBA cap mavens, Keith Smith and Yossi Gozlan, that the Nets will likely pass on team options for Malachi Smith (Liddell’s high school and NBA teammate) as well as Day-Ron Sharpe, Ziaire Williams and Josh Minott, saving cap space but retaining their free agent rights, which would permit them to re-sign or even extend them later in the Summer. Expect to see word on those decisions days after the second round takes place at Barclays on Wednesday. Next Sunday is the deadline for Sharpe and Williams’ team options, a day later it’s Minott’s turn.
Timing, as we’re about to find out again, plays a critical part in free agency, who can sign when and how. Gozlan, for example suggested the Nets could use the $9.4 million MLE which works out to $29.5 million over three, to sign Sharpe. Liddell, being older and with less NBA experience, is different. Similarly, we don’t know what the Nets are planning with fellow two-way, the 27-year-old Tyson Etienne.
The New Orleans Pelicans originally drafted Liddell out of Ohio State in 2022. He bounced from Atlanta and then to Phoenix as a portion of the Dejounte Murray trade. He spent the 2024 season with the Chicago Bulls organization as a two-way before linking up Brooklyn this past season.
While the Nets likely never saw Liddell as a long-term building like the other youngsters they currently have rostered, he had a handful of inspiring moments during his Brooklyn tenure. Starting all of the team’s final five games this past season, he averaged 18.4/5.8/1.8 and hit a double-double with 26 points and 10 rebounds on April 9th vs Indiana.
The Nets have plenty of flexibility — there’s that word again — in building the 2026-27 roster. To begin with if they do decline team options on those four, they will have around $50 million in cap space to work with. As noted they have the Room MLE and a lot of smaller deals. They currently have 15 players under contract at the moment, including seven of whom are likely to be on rookie deals making a total of $35.1 million or around 21.3% of the salary cap.
