The Brooklyn Nets are just a couple of weeks away from beginning their preparations for the upcoming 2026-27 NBA season where they hope to put forth a better product on the court. Brooklyn is mostly-concerned with how long this rebuild will take, but one of the interesting ideas to consider is who the Nets would keep on the team if the league expanded this offseason.
"Bleakness, thy name is the Brooklyn Nets. Mikel Brown Jr. and Egor Demin are the sole no-brainer selections. You could talk yourself into Brooklyn leaving everyone else up for grabs," Dan Favale wrote of the Nets for Bleacher Report. In the article in question, Favale, along with Grant Hughes, tried to predict which players each of the 30 NBA teams would keep given that NBA commissioner
Adam Silver has recently spoken about the league expanding to cities like Las Vegas, NV.
"Of course, decisions aren't made in that kind of a vacuum. Noah Clowney, Josh Minott and Day'Ron Sharpe are all useful and cheap," Favale continued. "Drake Powell showed enough defensively last year to hope his offense comes around. Joshua Jefferson is a cost-controlled combo forward whom the Nets just drafted at No. 28. Some will leave Michael Porter Jr. unprotected. Newly created franchises won't want to build around a 28-year-old secondary option in the final year of a contract that pays him $40.8 million."
For full context, Favale and Hughes were conducting this thought experiment assuming that the new expansion rules would match those that were in place when the Charlotte Hornets were added to the Association in 2004. Specifically, the duo considered the restrictions of "Each team can protect up to eight players, teams can only protect players who are under contract or restricted free agents (unrestricted free agents are not eligible to be protected), and each team must leave at least one player unprotected."
With that being said, the outlet predicted that the Nets would protect players like Porter, Brown, and Demin while leaving players like Julius Randle, Terance Mann, and Nolan Traore unprotected. For those that are familiar with how the WNBA has expanded in recent years, these teams would have to make tough choices whenever an expansion occurs. Assuming that the NBA decides to expand by the end of 2026, the Nets could have some interesting choices to make in the near future.
This article originally appeared on Nets Wire: Who would the Nets protect if the NBA expanded this summer?
