The Brooklyn Nets are entering the offseason phase of their rebuild and are looking to improve the team enough this summer to make it back to the playoffs next season. One of the ways that Brooklyn could improve this offseason is making the right moves in free-agency and one of their younger free-agents could be pivotal.
Towards the end of the 2023-24 season, Nets forward Trendon Watford showed off the entirety of his skill set when he received playing time due to some unfortunate injuries. Watford is an restricted free-agent this summer and could be brought back to Brooklyn at a reasonable number given everything that happened this past season.
Watford, 23, averaged 6.9 points, 3.1 rebounds, and 1.3 assists per game while shooting 52.7% from the field and 39.7% from three-point land. However, through Mar. 23, he averaged just 11.1 minutes per game as his minutes were inconsistent throughout most of the season given the logjam that the Nets had in the frontcourt.
Towards the end of the year, Brooklyn was dealing with some injuries to players like Cam Johnson and Dorian Finney-Smith, leading to some minutes within the frontcourt that had to be filled if the Nets were going to remain in the play-in tournament race.
Starting on Mar. 25, Watford averaged 25.4 minutes per game and during that time span, his numbers were pretty impressive. In the final 11 games of the season, Watford put up 12.9 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 2.2 assists per game while shooting 54.1% from the floor 44.0% from behind the three-point line.
Watford is coming off a season in which he played on a one-year, $2.02 million contract as he was trying to rebuild his value with the Nets after being waived by the Portland Trail Blazers in June of 2023. After the way that he performed towards the end of this season, Watford could have made himself more money and could be someone for Brooklyn to invest in long-term.
[lawrence-related id=58806,58802,58794]