as Brian Lewis reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201dIt was really good feedback, from the late first round, from all the front office, just seeing what they need for their team,\u201d Jefferson said. \u201cThey felt that I fit in a lot of spots because of my versatility. I\u2019m where I need to be. The Nets took a great chance on me, and I\u2019m very thankful for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a way the Nets took a chance on him like they took a chance on Mike Brown at No. 6. He too missed time with a back injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen that injury happened, I feel like a lot of things [were] jeopardized from that. Going into pre-draft, I was like, make the most out of your workouts and attack your rehab hard and everything will go how it needs to go, Very blessed for this position that I\u2019m in and just very thankful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marks said there was a connection between trading for Randle, then drafting similar sized forward even if their skillsets are different. Jefferson will be backing up both forwards.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt absolutely was,\u201d Marks said. \u201cJosh was a guy that we have absolutely been all over all year long and watched how he played the game, his skill set. That definitely translates.<\/p>\n
\u201cHigh IQ, and when you watch him play \u2014 when Iowa State plays through him, his teammates feed off of him \u2014 he\u2019s definitely a facilitator out there. The toughness that he has. So there were a lot of intangibles. And then he\u2019s a winner, an absolute flat-out winner. There\u2019s an edge to how he plays and a toughness, which we loved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moreover, Jefferson brings something that the Nets have been missing for a long while: physicality, something Randle will also help with in the starting lineup.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing about my game that\u2019s going to translate pretty quickly is my physicality. The NBA is a physical game right now. You have to be physical in the playoffs to win, and that\u2019s what I\u2019m going to bring,\u201d Jefferson said. \u201cThen just continue to work on my shot. Shooting it really well throughout this pre-draft process, a lot of reps. So if I continue to do that, it\u2019s going to keep me on the floor. And defending.\u201d<\/p>\n
That probably more than anything will give Nets fans positive vibes.<\/p>\n
He is, as you might expect, not a plus athlete. His max vertical was measured at 33.0 inches at the Combine and in fact all of his athletic measurements<\/a> were around the 30th percentile of the 72 prospects on hand. He has been compared to Kyle Anderson, the similar sized point forward who\u2019s had a long NBA career playing the same game. The Nets should be so lucky.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last June, the Brooklyn Nets traded Cam Johnson, a player earning a little more $20 million to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,8027,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-280019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-nets-draft","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280019","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=280019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}