The Brooklyn Nets have four first-round picks in the upcoming 2025 NBA Draft and they are hoping that their Lottery pick will give them a player that they can build around for the future. While the eighth overall pick in the Draft is not the outcome that Brooklyn was hoping for, they are still regarded as a team with a bright future ahead in their rebuild.
In their ranking of all 14 Lottery teams in terms of their future, Grant Hughes of Bleacher Report placed the Nets second on the list, behind only the San Antonio Spurs. Per Hughes, his “analysis will include young talent (age-25 season or younger in 2025-26), future draft picks, flexibility, quality of management and everything else that goes into building a winning franchise.”
What makes this ranking interesting is that Brooklyn ranks ahead of the Dallas Mavericks that had the best luck in the Lottery as they ended up with the first overall pick and the right to take Duke forward Cooper Flagg in the Draft in June. The Nets would have preferred to have the first overall pick as someone like Flagg, who is regarded as a generational prospect, could be a building block that a team like Brooklyn needs.
“Cap space is often overrated, but that’s not often the case when only one team has it. That’s Brooklyn’s major advantage as the offseason nears; nobody else comes close to the Nets’ projected $45 million in spending power below the cap,” Hughes wrote. Per Spotrac, the Nets lead the league in projected practical salary-cap space with $55.7 million, with the Detroit Pistons ranking second in the category at $24.6 million.
Not only does Brooklyn have the cap space to find under-the-radar players or take chances on players that are restricted free-agents this summer, but they also have the Draft assets to rebuild long-term if they choose to embrace that direction. ESPN’s Bobby Marks and Jeremy Woo ranked the Nets as the team with the second-best stash of Draft assets in the NBA, Lottery team or not.
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