{"id":276104,"date":"2026-06-24T02:58:33","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T02:58:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/276104\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T02:58:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T02:58:33","slug":"nets-select-star-freshman-mikel-brown-jr-in-potential-franchise-changing-2026-nba-draft-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/276104\/","title":{"rendered":"Nets select star freshman Mikel Brown Jr. in potential franchise-changing 2026 NBA Draft moment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mikel Brown Jr. walked into Barclays Center a Louisville freshman, and walked out a Net \u2014 and the single biggest brick in Brooklyn\u2019s rebuild.<\/p>\n<p>The Nets picked Brown sixth in the NBA Draft on Tuesday night, while they suffered rough luck in falling from joint-best odds of winning the lottery all the way down the sixth \u2013 missing out on the absolutely loaded Top 4 \u2013 they ended up landing the prospect many feel has the most upside outside of that quartet.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c(Playing in Brooklyn) would mean a lot. Big city. It\u2019s the big city, bright lights. A lot of big-time names come out of Brooklyn, so to be able to represent that means a lot,\u201d Brown said Monday of joining the Nets.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39772440\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GettyImages-2264423012.jpg\" alt=\"A Louisville player dribbles the ball past a Clemson player as a coach gestures from the sidelines.\" class=\"wp-image-39772440\"  \/>Louisville\u2019s Mikel Brown during a 2026 game against Clemson. Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would handle it. I\u2019m very calm and down to earth. I\u2019m about this basketball stuff. I keep the main thing the main thing; the focus is to try to win a championship.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Brooklyn took three guards in the first round last year, but Egor Demin, Nolan Traore and Ben Saraf didn\u2019t keep them from going back to the well with an even more gifted one. <\/p>\n<p>While a back injury and too-tough shot diet led to an inconsistent freshman campaign, Brown showed a rare combination of deep range, preternatural passing and downhill juice that they\u2019ll hope to mold into an All-Star.<\/p>\n<p>Brown joined Steph Curry and Trae Young as the only players since 2008 to post an assist percentage over 30, sink 84% from the foul line, have a free throw rate over 35 and take at least 14 3s per 100 possessions. <\/p>\n<p>He\u2019ll need to cut down his turnovers and improve his decision-making; but the rebuilding Nets can offer him playing time and plenty of runway to do so.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39772986\" width=\"557\" height=\"372\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/mikel-brown-jr-arrives-first-131987663.jpg\" alt=\"Mikel Brown Jr. in a light blue suit opening his jacket to reveal a lining with hibiscus flowers and the Puerto Rican flag.\" class=\"wp-image-39772986\" style=\"width:557px;height:auto;aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\"  \/>Mikel Brown Jr. prior to being selected by the Nets. AP Photo\/Adam Hunger<\/p>\n<p>The Nets met with Brown at least three times \u2013 including traveling to Orlando to meet with his family \u2013 and brought him to Brooklyn for a workout. GM Sean Marks picked him over guards Darius Acuff Jr. and Kingston Flemings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, it\u2019s definitely a relationship built there,\u201d Brown said. \u201cTalking with them constantly, with Mr. Marks and Coach Jordi (Fernandez), the biggest thing that he emphasized \u2013 if I get selected to go there \u2013 is building that relationship with Jordi.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt the end of the day, you\u2019ve got to have a great connection from point guard to point guard. Head coach (Fernandez) played point guard as well. So to be able to pick his brain on a lot of things and learn his system and to be able to come in and make an impact right away was big.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mikel Brown Jr. walked into Barclays Center a Louisville freshman, and walked out a Net \u2014 and the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,355,99,21,7939,105730,9,24,63,319],"class_list":["post-276104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-nets","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-nba","tag-nba-draft","tag-nba-draft-2026","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276104","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=276104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}