ESSAY: Brooklyn Nets out of the lottery?!? Say it isn’t so!!

There’s more hand-wringing in some parts of the Nets fan base than there is at the Hospital for Special Surgery at the end of a busy day.

It’s not quite official, but as of this moment, the Brooklyn Nets tank is in trouble.

Tankathon, yes, that appropriately named mock draft site, uses an algorithm to update the 2025 NBA draft order daily and on Tuesday morning, said algorithm had the Nets six picks at Nos. 15 and out of the lottery (their own;) 17 (Milwaukee Bucks😉 22 (New York Knicks😉 26 (Houston Rockets😉 42 (their own;) and 45 (Miami Heat.)

Out of the lottery?!? No discussions of ping pong ball aerodynamics? No playing with percentages at each pick? No chance at Cooper Flagg or the two Rutgers phenoms or Egor Demin, the Russian point guard, or the two Texas-based shooting guards, V.J. Edgecomb out of Baylor or Tre Johnson out of Texas?!? Woe is (some of) us.

Despite all the hang-wringing about the need to trade this veteran or that veteran, the Nets are winning games here and there no matter who they put on the court. Down SIX rotation players last night, they beat the top team in the West on their home court on the back end of a back-to-back after winning the front end vs. the Kings! It appears the only way to rescue the tank is to send Jordi Fernandez and family on an extended vacation to an undisclosed destination.

Of course, that’s silly (…right??) Teams find their own level of stink and it’s early. There are trades to make, MRIs to pour over but the reality for many fans is that unless the Nets get a top pick — top two, according to some — they’re doomed to be mediocre for the rest of time, a Chicago Bulls team dressed in Brooklyn black-and-white. Not capturing the Flagg or winning the race for Ace is an extinction-level event!

Never mind that Fernandez has been a revelation, getting the most out of a band of brothers whose bodies have been on the mend or whose careers have been on the schneid. He’s allowed his hand-picked staff to run plays at the end of games … and they’ve won. His “challenge coach” who he plucked from the Nuggets video staff leads the league in challenges with a near 2-to-1 success rate.

Forget as well that “Brooklyn grit” finally means something or that player development is working, whether it’s completing Cam Thomas game or resurrecting fallen angel Ziaire Williams who had a 19-and-10 double-double playing center last night or turning Jalen Wilson, the 51st pick in a so-so draft, into a reliable 3-point shooter, hitting 50% — 16-of-32 — over the last eight games.

Not to mention the assets Sean Marks & Co. have quietly accumulated: the 29 draft picks and swaps between now and 2031, all but three of which can be traded tomorrow; or the $60+ million in cap space (to be conservative) that will be available come July to lure free agents, easily the most in the league, or the NBA’s second largest trade exception at $23.3 million, which in the era of the new and draconian CBA has more value than fans believe.

You may not have liked the idea of another rebuild (I sure didn’t) or wanted Marks canned, whatever, but the success of a rebuild is not, cannot, be confined to the NBA lottery which as anyone who has followed it knows does not conform to realistic expectations. It is a lottery after all.

As Bobby Marks advised Nets fans in tweet Tuesday afternoon …

Similarly, a Nets insider told NetsDaily “our guys are competing establishing an identity, what any team wants,” adding, “long way to go to the season.”

There will be trades. There’s no indication, as we’ve noted before, that the strategy has changed. They’re keeping their eye on the prize which is the 2025 NBA Draft. They did not trade Mikal Bridges for that load of Knicks picks nor rejiggered their draft assets to require their own 2025 and 2026 firsts from Houston without placing the highest priority on building through the Draft. But as Brian Lewis wrote on the weekend, “they also intend to develop what’s already in the building, and that includes their habits.”

Indeed, just as the Nets were between their back-to-back games, there were two new rumors about Dorian Finney-Smith and Cam Johnson’s next destinations…

And Schroder sure didn’t hurt his stock in San Francisco with his 31-point, seven-assist showing.

As we’ve said before on more than one occasion — too many actually, there’s plenty of time left before the February 6 trade deadline (3:00 p.m. ET for those really interested) or even the unofficial start of the trade season on December 15 when some 80 players signed in the off-season can finally be moved. You can start panicking then if you wish, but know this: Marks has proven he can be very patient, far more so than fans. It might take some time.

For those who wonder why Marks hasn’t made any trades yet, NO general manage has this season. The last NBA trade was on the first day of training camp when the Knicks acquired Karl-Anthony Towns for Julius Randle and Dante DiVincenzo and some draft compensation. Trades got more difficult once the ball went up.

No, at the moment, the Nets don’t have a draft pick in the lottery, but will change daily. We’ll keep you apprised. It’s what we do. So rather than panicking, enjoy what’s going on between the lines. It’s good basketball.