When the Brooklyn Nets made the rare cross-borough trade with the New York Knicks to send Mikal Bridges to Manhattan for Bojan Bogdanovic and a small war chest of draft picks, it seemingly signified a firesale at the Barclay Center, with anything not nailed down available for the right price.
Do you want a point guard? Dennis Schroder is a FIBA World Cup MVP and is more than capable of running an offense either coming off the bench or in the starting five. How about a 3-and-D wing who can instantly start at a forward spot? Cam Johnson and Dorian Finney-Smith have slightly different player profiles, but both fit that bill.
Heck, if you need a non-shooting big who can play sound defense, Nic Claxton and Ben Simmons could both seemingly be had for the right price, with the former very in demand while the latter could be had practically for free at this point.
And yet, the Nets really haven't done much else so far this offseason, with Sean Marks re-signing Claxton to a four-year deal, handing Trendon Watford an extension, and acquiring former first-round pick Ziaire Williams and a 2030 second-round pick for Mamadi Diakite. No further draft hauls were acquired, no big stars said goodbye, and the Nets appear destined to be a bad team that could do work at the 2025 NBA trade deadline.
What gives? Did the Nets not receive the sort of offers they were expecting? Would they instead like to give it one final go with DFS, Johnson, and Schroder, as that trio likely won't impact the final record too much without star power to lead the way offensively? Or would Marks instead like to execute a soft rebuild, keeping the roleplayers he likes in the hopes of being one Cooper Flagg away from returning to the playoffs in the Eastern Conference? Needless to say, how the Nets handle their roster this season will be fascinating, as they could truly go multiple different ways, especially if they start to win and either lean into that or execute a true firesale to spam their lottery odds.
The Nets made Nic Claxton a priority in 2024
With the Bridges/Houston trades unofficially completed roughly a week before the start of free agency, Marks and company had to turn their attention to the rest of the roster and made a conscious decision about the future of the Nets: burn it down or go for a soft rebuild.
To some, the choice was obvious, especially after getting their short-term picks back from the Rockets; Brooklyn would actually benefit from having a win total in the 20s, and between the strength of the 2025 draft class and the expiration of Ben Simmons' contract, the Nets could be back in action in no time with secure a difference-maker like Flagg.
And yet, the Nets instead decided to re-sign their most notable free agent to a four-year, $100 million extension, and based on Marks' comments to the New York Post, it sure sounds like Brooklyn wants to keep him as a focal point of their team heading into the future.
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“Nic is the No. 1 priority for us, there's no doubt about that,” general manager Sean Marks said. “We hope he's a Net for a very long time. We hope we can continue to build around him and build with him and so forth. And it's been fun to watch Nic develop from his days at Georgia coming all the way through here. He's scratched the surface on who he could end up being one day,” Marks explained to the New York Post.
“It's important to sign our own and keep our guys here and develop our own. That's what we've done with Nic, and we've done that with a few other guys in the past. So, that'll be a priority.”
On paper, Marks is saying all of the right things; Claxton is one of their most improved players on Brooklyn's offense, and unless they end up with another non-shooter like Simmons as the focal point of their offense heading into the future, the former second-round pick should be able to remain a difference maker long-term. Still, if someone comes calling with the correct assets, who knows, maybe Marks would be willing to trade Claxton just like Bridges before him, as he is only the 11th-highest-paid center in AAV, according to Spotrac. As Blake Griffin learned all too well in Los Angeles, you can be the focal point of a team on signing day and then be traded to Detroit a few months later.
