The Brooklyn Nets are 0-4 heading into Friday's NBA Cup game against the visiting Detroit Pistons and with the first week of the NBA season wrapping up, many around the league are making evaluations. Brooklyn, especially after trading for former Minnesota Timberwolves forward Julius Randle, is trying to turn their rebuild around, but might have other factors to consider along the way.
"Take this season’s Brooklyn Nets, for instance. They owe their first-round pick to the Houston Rockets via a swap from the Mikal Bridges trade," John Hollinger wrote of the Nets for The Athletic. Hollinger's article focused on how some teams, possibly including the Nets, could still be incentivized to tank despite the NBA's new Lottery system for the draft.
"Normally,
you’d think this would give them no incentive to tank. But in this instance, not quite," Hollinger continued. "The Nets do control their first-round pick in 2028 and would seem to have a decent chance of again having one of the league’s 10 worst records and an 8.1 percent shot at the top pick. However, the Nets will be ineligible to win the 2028 lottery if they win it in 2027 — even if that pick goes to Houston"
Essentially, the Nets owe their 2027 first-round pick to the Houston Rockets and under the previous system, Brooklyn would receive zero benefit from losing games. However, under the current system, if the Nets' pick wins the 2027 Lottery, they would be ineligible from winning the Lottery in 2028, when they actually own their first-round pick.
More to the point, if Brooklyn's pick finishes in the top-5 of the 2027 NBA Draft, then they ruin their odds of being able to take advantage in the future since no team can pick in the top-5 for three straight season. Ultimately, the Nets will have some tough choices to make if this is another rough season record-wise, but as the NBA said, they would only benefit by optimizing their odds by just 0.02% on the high end.
Under the new lottery system, the hypothetical scenario regarding repeat lottery winners detailed here would result in virtually no benefit for the Nets. Their odds of getting next year’s #1 pick would increase by at most 0.2 percentage points. https://t.co/8NeG5irQts
— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) October 29, 2026
This article originally appeared on Nets Wire: Should the Nets be concerned with the new NBA Lottery draft system?
