Drake Powell didn’t arrive in Brooklyn with an offensive reputation. At North Carolina last season, the 6-5 wing was known almost exclusively for his defense, a high-motor stopper whose freshman minutes were tied to effort, not scoring. He knocked down the occasional mid-range jumper, hit 38.1% of his 3s on limited attempts, made simple reads and showed plenty of athletic juice as a cutter and transition finisher.

Even so, the Tar Heels didn’t ask him to create much for himself or others, which fed the scouting labels that cast him as a simple 3 and D wing. But 11 games into his rookie year, Powell has shown a more versatile and confident offensive game than the one he carried out of Chapel Hill.

In Monday’s 113-100 loss to the Knicks at Barclays Center, the 20-year-old matched his career high with 15 points on 5-for-10 shooting, adding two rebounds, four assists and a steal in 24 minutes off the bench. Nine of those points came in the third quarter, where he showed just how comfortable he’s become with the ball in his hands.

It started with a corner pump fake that sent Tyler Kolek flying past him, followed by a strong baseline drive and a soft floater over Guerschon Yabusele. He later relocated to the top of the key for a 3-pointer, then beat the buzzer with a side-step triple from the right wing that burned Kolek again. One of his toughest makes came in the fourth, a turnaround jumper from the mid-range over Kolek once more.

Brooklyn’s system has done more than give Powell room to breathe. It’s given him room to grow. With better spacing and confidence instilled by his coaches, the rookie has shown layers of his game that rarely surfaced in college. He’s attacking closeouts aggressively, reading defenses faster and playing with a level of freedom that will only accelerate his growth.

The Nets see a young player whose on-ball craft is growing game by game, and a rookie who’s beginning to understand how his athleticism and feel can translate at the NBA level.

“As we go, he’s going to continue to understand the league, the schemes, especially defensively,” head coach Jordi Fernández said. “Back-to-back games where I consider him a very, very good defender with a really high ceiling defensively, and I’m going to keep challenging him to be better.

“And then offensively, he saw the ball go in. He’s going to keep trusting the shot… He has to be comfortable shooting it a little faster. This is just going to come with time and work, which I think he’ll be OK, but I’m happy with how he looked out there… He looked free out there, having fun, playing really hard. We have to keep taking positive steps, for sure, with him.”

For Fernández, the signs are encouraging. For Powell’s teammates, they’re familiar. They watched him put in the work throughout the summer, and what he is showing now looks less like a surprise and more like the natural next stage of his development.

“We’ve seen him throughout the summer, so we knew what he was capable of,” Noah Clowney said. “Toward the end of the summer, we started putting him in different positions where he was handling it a lot more. So, yeah, most of it we’ve seen before. He’s just showing y’all all that now.”

What’s new is the confidence he’s carrying into each possession, built through repetition, trust and the work he’s invested behind the scenes. And as his role grows, Powell knows he has to keep leaning into that mindset and says the guidance around him is helping him do exactly that.

“I’m just out there playing basketball, trying to be aggressive and just trusting myself, my teammates and my coaches,” Powell said. “My player development coach, Corey Vinson, he’s been great. We have multiple film meetings and those are very important to me. I want to continue to buy into those, because I think that’ll help translate onto the court.”