NEW YORK — The Brooklyn Nets are heading into a new era of the franchise as they are moving forward with Jordi Fernandez as the head coach for next season and beyond. While Brooklyn still has to navigate plenty of other matters during this summer, it seems like the franchise has an idea of what to do for the 2024 NBA Draft.
“I think we look at the draft the same way every year, it’s take the best available,” Nets general manager Sean Marks said on Brooklyn’s draft philosophy following Fernandez’s introductory press conference on Wednesday. The Nets currently have no picks in the upcoming draft thanks to their deal with the Houston Rockets in January 2021 that sent James Harden to Brooklyn.
“If there’s somebody in there that, wow, they’re slipping, can we get in there at that particular pick,” Marks said in terms of what may encourage the Nets to get back into the draft. “That would be important for us just to go and say, ‘Hey, we, we got the 20th pick, we got the 44th pick.’ That doesn’t do us any good. It’s for us this year, it’s gonna be more strategic.”
Brooklyn is coming off a season that saw them finish with a disappointing 32-50 record despite beginning the 2023-24 season with a 13-10 record that made many believe that the Nets could make it back to the playoffs. However, Brooklyn went 19-40 the rest of the way and their first-round pick for this draft is a lottery pick that surely would help this franchise.
This upcoming draft class is viewed as one of the weaker years in recent memory, but being able to add young, cheap talent to a team that is still rebuilding following the breakup of the Big 3 would still be beneficial. The good news for the Nets fanbase is that Marks is not opposed to getting back into this draft if the opportunity is there.
“No, I would not rule out acquiring anything. If there’s a guy there that you like, you’ve gotta have the conviction to go after it and, and go after them,” Marks said.
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