Brooklyn Nets guard Ben Saraf had an important offseason ahead of him as he was staring down the barrel of a tougher point guard competition with the addition of Mikel Brown Jr. Brooklyn put Saraf in a position to see how much he improved from his rookie season, but it seems that some around the NBA are not convinced in Saraf's improvement just yet.
"The Nets had five first-round picks in 2025. With the exception of the outstanding Egor Dёmin, the Nets look as if they whiffed on this entire group," John Hollinger wrote for The Athletic when discussing Brooklyn's 2025 NBA Draft class. Hollinger had glowing things to say about Egor Demin, but players like Saraf did not catch the eye of Hollinger for specific reasons.
"Saraf’s off-kilter left-handed
game showed some flashes, but he still isn’t a threat from the perimeter and rarely can get himself all the way to the cup," Hollinger continued on Saraf. "This results in many difficult, contested finishes and 14-of-36 (38.9 percent) shooting inside the arc. A 5.7 percent rebound rate in six games against summer-league competition is also pretty sad for a 6-6 guard."
Saraf, 20, finished his time in the California Classic and Las Vegas Summer League with averages of 10.0 points, 2.5 rebounds, 3.3 assists, and 1.2 steals per game while shooting 37.3% from the field and 33.3% from behind the three-point line. In what could be indication of his baseline for next season, Saraf came off the bench in four of his six games played with the Nets starting Brown and Egor Demin in the backcourt throughout the summer circuit.
As of this writing, Saraf will enter training camp in the fall competing with Brown and Nolan Traore for point guard minutes with Brown presumably having the inside track to be the starting point guard. Saraf still has some time to prove that he can be one of the point guards in head coach Jordi Fernandez's rotation, but he will have to continue working on his game to the best of his ability given some of his flaws in summer league play.
This article originally appeared on Nets Wire: What to make of Nets' Ben Saraf's performance in summer league play?
