{"id":206578,"date":"2025-10-12T00:05:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T00:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/206578\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T00:05:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T00:05:07","slug":"joe-tsai-good-pick-in-2026-draft-a-priority-for-nets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/206578\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Tsai: ‘Good Pick’ In 2026 Draft A Priority For Nets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Asked during a panel hosted by the All-In Podcast about his predictions for the Nets\u2018 this season, team owner Joe Tsai acknowledged that contending for a playoff spot probably isn\u2019t a realistic goal for the team in 2025\/26 (YouTube link<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cI have to say we\u2019re in a rebuilding year,\u201d Tsai said (hat tip to Brian Lewis of The New York Post<\/a>). \u201cWe spent all of our (2025) picks \u2014 we had five first-round draft picks this past summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have one (first-round) pick in 2026, and we hope to get a good pick. So, you can predict what kind of strategy we will use for this season. But we have a very young team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tsai isn\u2019t saying anything that any Nets or NBA fan doesn\u2019t already know. Brooklyn entered the summer as the only team with significant cap space, but used that room to take on unwanted contracts and continue stockpiling draft picks rather than acquiring win-now help. With five rookie first-round picks on their roster, the Nets will be prioritizing player development over their win-loss record in the coming months.<\/p>\n

Although Brooklyn\u2019s approach to the season is no secret, the NBA typically frowns upon any public remarks from an executive or owner suggesting that his team might be in tanking mode. Tsai\u2019s comment about being able to predict the \u201ckind of strategy\u201d the Nets will use to achieve their goal of getting a \u201cgood\u201d draft pick can certainly be interpreted that way, so we\u2019ll see if the league office responds at all, perhaps with a fine.<\/p>\n

After the Nets won 32 games in 2023\/24 and 26 in \u201924\/25, oddsmakers have set their over\/under<\/a> for \u201925\/26 at just 20.5 wins. While general manager Sean Marks has insisted he was happy the team exceeded preseason expectations last season, his moves since last December \u2013 including trading away veterans Dennis Schr\u00f6der<\/a>, Dorian Finney-Smith<\/a>, and Cameron Johnson<\/a> \u2013 suggest he wouldn\u2019t mind if the Nets were to drop a few more games this year and land a pick higher than No. 8 in the 2026 draft lottery.<\/p>\n

In the process of reducing the number of veterans on the roster, Marks has loaded up youth, selecting Egor Demin<\/a> (No. 8), Nolan Traore<\/a> (No. 19), Drake Powell<\/a> (No. 22), Ben Saraf<\/a> (No. 26), and Danny Wolf<\/a> (No. 27) in this June\u2019s draft. Brooklyn projects to have the NBA\u2019s youngest team in 2025\/26, as Lewis notes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Asked during a panel hosted by the All-In Podcast about his predictions for the Nets\u2018 this season, team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,66240,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-206578","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-joe-tsai","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}