best odds in the draft lottery<\/a> was 2017, when they finished 20-62. However, that pick belonged to the Boston Celtics, who ended up trading down with the Philadelphia 76ers. Markelle Fultz was the first prospect off the board.<\/p>\nThe last time Brooklyn had the worst record and actually owned its pick was 2010, finishing 12-70. With a 25% chance at No. 1, the Nets fell to No. 3, drafting Derrick Favors.<\/p>\n
It has been nearly 26 years since the franchise actually landed the top pick in the draft. In 2000, the Nets finished 31-52, the seventh-worst record in the NBA. They were hit with some major lottery luck, jumping all the way up to the first selection.<\/p>\n
The top prospect off the board was Kenyon Martin, who ended up becoming a crucial piece in the then-New Jersey Nets’ back-to-back NBA Finals appearances in 2002 and 2003.<\/p>\n
Fast forward to today, and Brooklyn couldn’t have a better time to be this deep in a rebuild. The 2026 NBA Draft class is loaded with generational talent, including Darryn Peterson (Kansas), AJ Dybantsa (BYU) and Cameron Boozer (Duke). Even if they slipped back to No. 2 or No. 3, the Nets would still land a potential superstar.<\/p>\n
The discourse surrounding the NBA’s leniency with tanking has reached an all-time high, and it looks like Adam Silver and the league are going to take action very soon. However, organizations can’t be blamed for taking advantage of the opportunity. If a team can land the best prospect in a rebuild, it’s going to drop games.<\/p>\n
The Nets played their cards right and are now in a prime position to draft their next franchise player. Brooklyn hasn’t had a legitimate homegrown star since Brook Lopez, and fans are starved of winning basketball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brooklyn Nets fans can rejoice now that their fate in the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery has been sealed.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":{"0":"post-193574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-brooklyn","9":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","10":"tag-brooklyn-news","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-nyc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}