Brooklyn’s Next Nets: Tosan Evbuomwan

The first article of a mini-series, examining if the Brooklyn Nets have uncovered any diamonds in the rough this season.

I recently wrote that the Brooklyn Nets’ 2024-2025 campaign, to this point, hasn’t made much sense. It wasn’t a defense or condemnation of the not-really-a-tank route they seem to be taking, but somewhat of a white flag. (Not a White Flagg.)

Brooklyn’s long-term plans seemed clear and obvious after last summer’s trades that just screamed short-term-tank, but nearly a year later, and Sean Marks is much tougher to read. As he’ll remind us, he does have a ton of roster flexibility moving forward, with both cap space and tradable draft assets in tow. Even as the league’s best players have stopped entering free agency in the 2020s — thus limiting the importance of cap space — that’s always a positive. But what shape the Nets are planning to contort themselves into with this newfound flexibility? That’s an unknown. Brooklyn’s current plan will only be judged by its the results.

Which brings us to the one real lesson the 2024-25 Brooklyn Nets have taught us: It’s never been harder to become a good NBA player.

Statistically, this is indisputable. A fully globalized NBA led to 125 international players on Opening Night rosters. This league isn’t just the best of the best, it’s the best of the best of the best.

This manifests as a game that is both better and harder to play than ever. Shaquille O’Neal, Kevin Hart, and others would do well to acquaint themselves with this recent Thinking Basketball video before decrying the (incredible) state of the game today…

There is no such thing as a stretch-4 anymore. Your 4-man (AKA the second-biggest guy on the court) has to shoot it from outside now. Evan Mobley, who excels if not dominates at everything else a power forward could ever be asked to do, has seen an outside shooting leap take him to new heights in 2025.

The pure 3-and-D archetype is evaporating too. The late 2010’s Houston Rockets, and therefore P.J. Tucker, will always have a special place in my heart, but it’s damn-near impossible to imagine a wing with such little ability to attack a closeout playing 40 minutes a night for a 65-win team ever again. I almost pity a guy like Jaden McDaniels, who has far more off-the-dribble talent than P.J. Tucker ever did and is still fighting to be offensively viable in a playoff context.

Thus, the following is a tough question for General Manager Sean Marks.

“For me, myself, from the front office side, we’re looking at it from, ‘Who are the Next Nets?’ Who do we look at and say, OK, this person can be part of this rebuild and this person is on the team for the next two, three years?”

He asked that at September’s Media Day, and five months later, we’re starting to try and answer it for him. Our ProfessorB just analyzed the eight current Nets age-25 or younger, and the quantitative results showed pretty much what you’d expect.

Thomas is the highest-rated young Net by [EPM], ranking 19th among the league’s under-25 players and 71st overall. Two more Nets, Sharpe and Watford, have EPM ratings ranking them among the top one-third of young NBA talent, while Williams and Evbuomwan rank in the middle third and Clowney, Johnson, and Wilson in the bottom third.

Among this group, Thomas and Sharpe are fairly known quantities, and both will hit restricted free agency this summer. They each have clear strengths and weaknesses, but for a couple of late-20s picks in 2021, this is a major credit to them … and the team that selected them. Sharpe in particular has recently made fantastic strides on defense, cementing his floor as a rock-solid NBA contributor, which did not seem promised after his first couple seasons.

Will Sharpe and Thomas be capable of starting on championship teams? Do we know what their optimized play-styles look like? Will we see them in Brooklyn beyond this season? The answer to all of these questions remains a mystery, but these fourth-year pros are far less mysterious than the rest of Brooklyn’s young players, many of whom are recent additions to the roster.

So we’ll take a look at the rest of them one by one, figuring out if Sean Marks has stumbled upon any of the Next Nets in this wonky season, starting with … Tosan Evbuomwan.

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Evbuomwan, currently on a two-year, two-way deal, is one funky, funky player. It’s not often you find a 24-year-old — who didn’t even have a two-way — that can walk onto an NBA team and isolate into a bucket…

…but that’s Evbuomwan.

Aside from the obvious talent and intriguing background, a Brit who helped start the basketball team at his high school, Evbuomwan is refreshing for many Nets fans because he is a strong guy at 6’7”.

Ever since MarShon Brooks, really, so many of Brooklyn’s young players and draft picks have been physically weak as prospects. Small, skinny, even if otherwise athletic. Evbuomwan is not that, both strong and long, and every time he posts up a guard or outmuscles a similarly-sized player for a rebound is a sight for sore eyes.

He is already 24 years old, so these physical attributes are nearly set in stone, but he just feels like an NBA player out there. After his first couple games in Brooklyn, it felt miraculous the team was able to pick him up off the scrap heap.

It’s become more clear since; despite his talent, an optimized role for the ex-Princeton Tiger in the NBA is tough to make out.

At Princeton, Evbuomwan was an awesome back-to-the-basket and dribble-handoff hub. Think Domantas Sabonis, in terms of where he got his offense from. Princeton would run cross-screens down low for him so he could attack 1-on-1 in small spaces…

His passing game was similar to Sabonis too. He excelled at hitting backdoor cutters or reading split-action. While this read isn’t too impressive, he hit it enough to become the record-holder for assists in a season at Princeton…

The Brooklyn Nets or any other NBA team are not going to let Evbuomwan post up and handle the ball this much. He runs some fake dribble-handoffs occasionally and gets to the rim, but largely, he’s a wing at the NBA level.

He’s certainly a wing, rather than a big, on defense. For all his strength and length, he’s not a particularly explosive vertical athlete, limiting his ability to protect the rim. He’s much more effective on the perimeter, getting into passing lanes or meeting ball-handlers on switches or closeouts…

So, as a wing at the NBA level, he’s going to have to shoot some threes (career 27-of-83, 32.5%, from deep), and attack from the arc rather than the post.

The good news is that he’s flashed some real playmaking ability here, particularly setting up teammates around the basket. There was that above lob to Day’Ron Sharpe, as well as this beauty to Nic Claxton…

…and some clear poise in the short-roll as well…

The problem is that Evbuomwan hasn’t shown much prowess in driving and kicking out to shooters. You can really see his past life as a big-time post-up threat, because his drives often turn into back-downs and fadeaways.

It’s not that Evbuomwan’s touch as a mid-range shooter is the problem, but per Cleaning the Glass, a whopping 42% of his shots this season have come from the midrange. That’s not a shot profile NBA teams are going to tolerate unless you’re a ball-dominant offensive star.

The bar to be an NBA contributor is just so high. It’s not enough that Evbuomwan is big and long – 7’1” wingspan – with excellent footwork near the basket and solid touch, he also needs to make the most of his passing ability and hit threes, given that he’s not a forceful rim protector on the other end. That’s a lot of stuff.

So, has Sean Marks found a guy?

Maybe. Though Evbuomwan is already (just) 24 years old, he still isn’t close to 1000 career minutes in the NBA. Beyond the passing flashes he’s shown, Evbuomwan generally seems to have a high feel for the game. Thus, I’d bet that some of his off-the-dribble decision-making improves with more reps, in addition to his off-ball defense. Remember, much of his college career (and some of his G League career) was spent defending the painted area, not making perimeter rotations.

Tosan Evbuomwan’s game deserves to be nit-picked, but only because he seems quite close to being an NBA contributor. For a player the Brooklyn Nets plucked out of thin air in the middle of the season, that’s a fantastic start. Unlike some of the other young-ish players on the 2024-25 Nets, I’m genuinely looking forward to seeing what Evbuomwan can do in the second half of this season.

“I think, honestly, the way he’s playing, it can’t go unnoticed. I’ve mentioned it to my coaches, my friends, how good he is.” — D’Angelo Russell

• In Brooklyn, Tosan Evbuomwan ’23 nets a new path