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<\/a><\/p>\nD\u00ebmin turned 20 years old on March 3, but by then, he was already ruled out for the remainder of the season with plantar fasciitis. Sure, he\u2019s only taken 322 total threes in his career and didn\u2019t shoot well on the few middies he took, but his jumper is off to a flying start at the NBA level. They all feel like they\u2019re going in, he\u2019s not afraid to take big ones, and those numbers don\u2019t lie. D\u00ebmin\u2019s shooting is the biggest positive any Nets rookie displayed in 2025-26.<\/p>\n
It seems unfair to Brooklyn\u2019s scouting department to term their belief in D\u00ebmin\u2019s shooting a \u201cleap of faith,\u201d but it\u2019s jarring just how important it\u2019s become. Nearly 72% of D\u00ebmin\u2019s shots this season were threes. Per Synergy, nearly 60% of his shots were catch-and-shoot looks. Given his play at BYU, where he led a top-5 offense in Division I basketball on heavy pick-and-roll usage, I understand why Marks initially mentioned so many of D\u00ebmin\u2019s other attributes. But we\u2019re still waiting for those to pop.<\/p>\n
My favorite D\u00ebmin plays are passes like this\u2026<\/p>\n
The Nets suddenly have a 5-on-4 advantage thanks to a gamble that didn\u2019t go NOLA\u2019s way, Egor feels Zion Williamson rotating toward the rim, and boom, a fastball to the opposite corner. Williamson doesn\u2019t have much interest in closing out on Powell, but this is an encouraging example of Brooklyn\u2019s belief that high-level passing will play all over the court, even if Egor never becomes much of a primary ball-handler.<\/p>\n
To that end, it was interesting to hear the #8 overall pick admit that he felt his role changed once he started sharing the backcourt with Nolan Traore.<\/p>\n
In the midst of answer about his adjustment to the NBA during his exit interview, D\u00ebmin said: \u201cBeing a rookie who has an opportunity to start as a starting point guard \u2014 which is even probably more responsibility than later on when Nolan would get on the court and I started playing more of a wing \u2014 I think that\u2019s something that gave me a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
D\u00ebmin\u2019s usage did dip slightly after the calendar flipped to 2026, around the time the two rookies were consistently starting in the backcourt together. I thought that was more due to Egor\u2019s own limitations as a ball-handler, particularly compared to his catch-and-shoot ability, and\/or him growing fatigued during a long NBA season, especially with plantar fasciitis.<\/p>\n
Again, he just turned 20 years old. He will improve. D\u00ebmin even limited these types of turnovers as the season progressed\u2026<\/p>\n
\u2026but high hips and a lack of wiggle limit his effectiveness inside the arc.<\/p>\n
One obvious goal is to live in the weight room; D\u00ebmin has talked about packing on muscle since last summer. It may not solve all his problems on offense, but it should help him bring the ball up court and say, hold defenders in \u201cjail\u201d in the pick-and-roll. The question is how much some extra muscle will help his drives to the rim.<\/p>\n
On these plays, Cade Cunningham (an extreme example) doesn\u2019t bowl over his defender with a shove or shoulder, but crucially, he can dribble through contact\u2026<\/p>\n
D\u00ebmin takes long, sweeping strides at 6\u20199\u201d, but he can\u2019t extend his dribble right now. That explains, in part, the lack of rim-finishing and ties into the most fascinating area of his game: the playmaking.<\/p>\n
Egor D\u00ebmin averaged 3.3 assists and 1.7 turnovers per game this season, nothing too crazy. He rarely tried to finish through multiple defenders, occasionally a bit conservative (and frustrating for fans) with his scoring, but he did create a ton of catch-and-shoot opportunities for teammates. Who knows how many assists D\u00ebmin would have had if Noah Clowney and Nolan Traore and Terance Mann were league-average 3-point shooters?<\/p>\n
That being said, in 52 games, D\u00ebmin had just 57 assists that led to buckets at the rim. And after skimming through all of these assists on Synergy, there weren\u2019t a ton of high-level reads to create these layups. I thought he missed a few of these admittedly tough plays this season\u2026<\/p>\n
Was D\u00ebmin\u2019s playmaking hampered by his plantar fasciitis? By a general lack of opportunity to drive downhill, which should be mitigated by muscle gain? How valuable is his kick-out passing for an offense that wants to shoot plenty of 3-pointers? Is his playmaking graded on an unfair curve based on the scouting reports coming out of BYU? Were his passing numbers at BYU juiced by regimented pick-and-roll reads?<\/p>\n
These are all valid questions without easy answers. I don\u2019t believe D\u00ebmin\u2019s lack of driving was entirely responsible for a lack of playmaking flashes, but there\u2019s a balance somewhere. I\u2019m excited to watch D\u00ebmin up the aggression next season, and hopefully make some more complex reads.<\/p>\n
His frame should help him see over defenders; likewise, he met expectations defensively in 2025-26 season, largely due to his positional size. Sean Marks emphasized this when D\u00ebmin was drafted, and watching him post decent deflection\/steal rates despite a lack of athleticism was encouraging. Of course, D\u00ebmin occasionally got bodied down low and struggled to change direction, particularly on closeouts\u2026<\/p>\n
Collin Murray-Boyles was drafted one spot after Egor D\u00ebmin, at #9 overall by the Toronto Raptors last June. This April, CMB has burst onto the scene by playing a tremendous playoff series against the Cleveland Cavaliers\u2026<\/p>\n
Egor D\u00ebmin did not have a bad season. His 3-point shooting was utterly remarkable, and he had a real chance to make Second Team All-Rookie had he not been sidelined with plantar fasciitis in late February. While I\u2019ve questioned just how talented of a playmaker he really is, the flashes were there as a teenager, and D\u00ebmin\u2019s size, feel, work ethic, and shooting will likely combine to make him a positive regular-season player moving forward, particularly on offense.<\/p>\n
But watching these NBA Playoffs, I can\u2019t help but worry about D\u00ebmin\u2019s ultimate ceiling while seeing a player like CMB, who has tremendous feel but also unteachable strength, thrive. Pardon the clich\u00e9, but the postseason, as disparate from regular-season ball as it has ever been, demands extreme physicality and explosion. It demands ball-handlers who can create offense from thin air and navigate traffic. This may not be a D\u00ebmin complaint as much as it is a Nets front office complaint, a group that, under Sean Marks, has often faded physicality and explosion.<\/p>\n
D\u00ebmin can shoot the rock, and for that, the Nets deserve credit. He will be but 20 years old in his sophomore season, with ample opportunity to improve under an ideal head coach in Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez. In any case, it appears Brooklyn selected a functional rotation player with the #8 overall pick, no small feat. But next season, we\u2019ll have to see more besides impressive outside shooting.<\/p>\n
That being said, Egor D\u00ebmin has more charisma than he knows what to do with. For any flaws he night have, it\u2019s tough not to believe in him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels safe,\u201d said D\u00ebmin of his current situation. \u201cI would say. I just \u2014 I know exactly where I\u2019m going to be. I know exactly what I\u2019m going to be doing, and I know exactly what type of timing throughout the summer I\u2019m going to have, right? So it kind of gives me confidence in my development, and that\u2019s why I think this summer is probably one of the most important summers in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why did the Brooklyn Nets select Egor D\u00ebmin at #8 in the 2025 NBA Draft? \u201cI think the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,3282,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-211017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-nets-analysis","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211017","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=211017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}