{"id":218781,"date":"2025-10-17T02:53:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T02:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/218781\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T02:53:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T02:53:09","slug":"egor-demin-set-for-nets-preseason-debut-with-competition-in-full-swing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/218781\/","title":{"rendered":"Egor Demin set for Nets preseason debut with competition in full swing"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2014 Egor D\u00ebmin, the first Nets lottery pick in 15 years, will get his first taste of NBA competition Friday in Toronto.<\/p>\n

The No. 8 pick, who has been sidelined with a foot injury, makes his delayed debut in the preseason finale against the Raptors.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been practicing based on the program that we\u2019ve had for him. It\u2019s been a ramp-up and he\u2019s been able to play five-on-five, and now he\u2019s ready to see the floor,\u201d Nets coach Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez said. \u201cSo, good news is [Friday] he\u2019ll have some minutes. And that\u2019s exciting. I\u2019m excited for him. He\u2019s done a great job and now we\u2019re ready to take the next step.\u201d<\/p>\n

D\u00ebmin, a 19-year-old point guard from BYU, suffered a plantar fascia tear in July<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The 6-foot-9 Russian missed the first three games of the preseason before getting cleared for full contact practice while the Nets were in Macao<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now D\u00ebmin \u2014 the 11th-youngest player in the league \u2014 is set to debut in Toronto. But Fern\u00e1ndez doesn\u2019t want to heap too much pressure on his lithe shoulders.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have too much [expectation] for him as far as he doesn\u2019t need to feel much pressure or anything. I want him to enjoy his first minutes,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez said. \u201cObviously I\u2019m going to ask him things like I ask everybody else as far as doing things with purpose, and play really hard and use his super powers \u2014 that\u2019s his passing and shooting and his size. But don\u2019t overthink it. I don\u2019t want him to try to analyze everything, and just go out there and have fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the record five first-round picks by the Nets were point guards Nolan Traore and Ben Saraf. Traore has started two of Brooklyn\u2019s three preseason tilts, while Saraf handed out 11 assists in Sunday\u2019s win over Phoenix. But both struggled at times against NBA-level ball pressure.<\/p>\n

\"BrooklynNets guard Egor Demin (8) at Media Day. Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

\u201cNolan and Ben could feel it, and that\u2019s always a good learning process,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s going to keep happening. We\u2019re going to have to keep helping them. But that\u2019s going to force them to take the next step, and the next step after, and so on and so forth.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, very happy so far [with] what they bring to the group. Very happy to bring, now, Egor into the mix. And they all feel like they have to compete really hard, and most important take advantage of their minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throwing D\u00ebmin into that mix Friday vs. the Raptors begs the obvious questions of how the trio will coexist and split those minutes<\/a>, and how much time any of them will spend off the ball.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have a crystal ball, so I don\u2019t know if I can answer the question,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez deflected. \u201cWhat I\u2019m very excited about is seeing how that process is going to go. They\u2019re all going to fight for some of the same minutes.<\/p>\n

\"EgorEgor Demin #8 of the Brooklyn Nets dribbles the ball during the game against the Orlando Magic during the 2025 NBA Summer League. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re all going to fight for some of the wing minutes. But right now for sure the starting point guard and backup point guard, those three are fighting for those minutes. And that\u2019s great because we\u2019re going to see a lot of the young talent we drafted playing real NBA minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFollow all the basketball buzz in Brooklyn\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Nets by Brian Lewis, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Critics have wondered whether D\u00ebmin can shoot well enough to thrive off the ball, having hit just 27.3 percent from deep at BYU. But drilling 16 straight 3-pointers in just 35 seconds at his pro day and hitting 43.5 percent in Summer League on heavy volume suggested he\u2019s a better shooter than advertised.<\/p>\n

Friday he gets to start showing it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s got the whole package, from dribbling, shooting, being active, running the floor. The only thing he needs \u2014 and I guess it\u2019s just because he\u2019s young and grew up in Europe \u2014 he needs to be more aggressive,\u201d ex-Net Andrei Kirilenko told The Post. \u201cBut with him, what I see, if he would be more aggressive [but] keep this angle to involve his teammates, he would be positive. He\u2019d be awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 Egor D\u00ebmin, the first Nets lottery pick in 15 years, will get his first taste of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[6996,49,48,13155,459,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-218781","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-brooklyn-nets","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-egor-demin","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}