It’s not just the draft. The Nets have building up their cap space and that flexibility could make for an interesting free agency as well as a draft.
The buzz is getting louder. The Brooklyn Nets and Sean Marks aren’t just thinking about their 31 draft picks when they look out over the NBA landscape. Marks and co. are also ready to explore free agency and the trade market.
After Sean Marks hinted about the possibility in interviews Thursday with Brian Lewis of the Post and Sarah Kustok of the YES Network Brian Windhorst and Tim Bontemps in their latest look at NBA trade buzz and intel discussion, said that the Nets are expected to go “star searching” this summer.
Said Windhorst…
[T]he Nets, currently projected to have more than $60 million in cap space next summer, are planning on going star searching either in free agency or by using that room to acquire a big name via trade. Brooklyn has made it known it sees Johnson as either a very good fit as a role player next to a star or an attractive player to use in a trade to get that star, sources said. The point being, the price is higher because the Nets don’t have to trade Johnson.
“That’s all good to say, but they’ll trade him if they get what they want,” a rival executive said. “They like him as a player and a person and all that, but they built his contract specifically to be able to trade him by next summer.”
With trade deadline rumors linking Johnson to the Sacramento Kings and Oklahoma City Thunder — the Kings being more serious, things could happen soon, but unlike the trades of Dennis Schroder to Golden State and Dorian Finney-Smith to L.A., there is no great rush. Those two, while having good seasons, are 30+ and essentially rentals on expiring deals while Johnson is 28, averaging nearly 20 points a game with splits close to the 50/40/90 Holy Grail of NBA shooters and his contract is not just reasonable compared to his production, but declining both in absolute terms and as a percentage of the rising salary cap. Again Windhorst:
Johnson’s deal, signed in 2023, reduces by $2 million next season, ideal for a contending team managing salary cap challenges. He has two years and $43 million left after this season.
It should also be noted that league sources, talking to NetsDaily over the past several days have noted that the Nets have a goal in salary cap management. They want more.
“They are trying to get enough spots for two maxes,” one league source told ND, referring to max contracts. “A vet max and then a rookie extension max.”
The source also said that in trade discussions through the February 6 trade deadline, Brooklyn is not interested in anything that would fetter their star searches. “They aren’t taking on future money.
Indeed that was a key determinant. if not the key determinant, in Marks choosing the Lakers’ offer for DFS over the Grizzlies. The Grizzlies wanted the Nets to accept John Konchar who is in the first year of a three-year $18.5 million contract as part of the deal. The Laker trade — Finney-Smith and Shake Milton for D’Angelo Russell and Maxwell Lewis plus three second rounders was a wash.
Similarly, said the source, if the Kings want Cam Johnson — a deal that might require the inclusion of either Kevin Huerter or Trey Lyles — to balance the deal, Sacramento would have to find a third team.
Of course, It’s all part of the flexibility that is Marks mantra. He didn’t talk specifically about “star-searching” in his interviews but his comments hinted that the Nets can go in a multitude of directions and need to be “poised” to move in any direction.
“You have to be poised and position yourself to be able to have that opportunity. We’re going to give ourselves the best chance to do that. Now, on whom and when? That’s TBD.” he told Lewis Thursday in Milwaukee, then hinted at how his draft cache could fit in. “We’ve got these draft assets that, you can obviously pick them, you can trade them, you can move them around. We’ve got the room. And ultimately, we’ve got two things: We’ve got a market that’s going to be attractive, and we’ve got Joe [Tsai] as an owner, that’s proved that at the right time, he’ll go all-in, and he’s not afraid to say it and do it.”
With that estimated $70 million in cap space, could they go for a Jonathan Kuminga and Santi Aldama at one end of the scale or trade for Jalen Green of Houston at the other end. And what about D’Lo? Is he someone the Nets might retain. He certainly has said all the right things about Brooklyn and is playing well.
Or the Nets could kick the can down the road, not make any big deals and hold most of that cap space for the 2026 crop of free agents, which is notably better. Yozzi Gozlan of CapSheets.com thinks the Nets may not need as much cap space going forward anyway unless they want to go for big stars.
“It’s just that in recent years, cap space has been far less valuable since teams don’t want to give up premium assets to dump bad salary anymore,” Gozlan told NetsDaily. “Very little money got spent that way last off-season, The biggest dumps were Tim Hardaway Jr. to Detroit and Reggie Jackson to Charlotte.
“So unless they plan on giving a guy like Kuminga a huge offer sheet, they likely won’t end up needing $50+ million. $30 million is enough nowadays.”
Flexibility, flexibility, flexibility. As Windhorst and Bontemps and other pundits are realizing, it’s more than just a mantra. It’s the guiding force in the rebuild.
- NBA trade buzz and intel: Next in the Butler saga, Nets moves – Brian Windhorst & Tim Bontemps – ESPN+