{"id":281954,"date":"2026-06-30T03:23:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T03:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/281954\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T03:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T03:23:08","slug":"mikel-brown-jr-carries-a-great-burden-but-even-more-confidence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/281954\/","title":{"rendered":"Mikel Brown Jr. carries a great burden, but even more confidence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, Net Income defined<\/a> Brooklyn\u2019s decision to select Mikel Brown Jr. at No. 6 overall as the franchise\u2019s \u201cbiggest decision since John Calipari muffed 1996 Draft and wimped out by deciding against taking Kobe Bryant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Debate the particulars if you want, but the point is clear: Mikel Brown Jr. has the weight of a franchise on his shoulders. Egor D\u00ebmin had a promising rookie season, particularly shooting the ball, and profiles (potentially) as a nice contributor to winning teams for seasons to come. If that turns out to be the case, that\u2019s a successful pick at #8 overall.<\/p>\n

But Brown Jr. is really who Brooklyn\u2019s rebuild rests upon. There are other avenues to improvement; Brian Lewis of New York Post reported<\/a> on Monday evening that the Nets have shown interest in Trey Murphy II and Cason Wallace in the trade market. Mitchell Robinson, Keon Ellis, and Rui Hachimura are free agents that have been linked to Brooklyn (perhaps simply because the Nets have cap space), but general consensus around the league is that the Nets are more active on the trade block.<\/p>\n

Regardless, Brooklyn is not locked into this roster, but they are locked into Mikel Brown Jr.. He is either the 20-year-old star guard of the future or the representative of an outright tank failure (or, more likely, somewhere in the middle). And he is one heck of a fascinating prospect to tote such responsibility.<\/p>\n

Obviously, there\u2019s the pure talent gleaming off him, the logo-threes, the handles, the dunks … we\u2019re all familiar by now. And he is now officially a Brooklyn Net; the team introduced him at the Brooklyn Basketball Training Center on Monday afternoon, along with fellow draft picks Joshua Jefferson and Tyler Bilodeau…<\/p>\n

Brown Jr. touts many qualities other recent Nets\u2019 picks have. He is incredibly polite, a bit soft-spoken, eager to talk about the good of the team rather than his own career. The 6\u20194\u201d guard is also undeniably, overwhelmingly confident in his abilities.<\/p>\n

Given that he met with the Nets three times before the draft, I asked Brown Jr. how deep certain X\u2019s and O\u2019s conversations went; he did not hesitate to call himself a \u201csavant\u201d in his answer: \u201cThey were pretty deep, but it\u2019s nothing that I haven\u2019t already learned and understood. That kind of made it, also, easier on them. You know, their player development could be more advanced, because I\u2019m already a student of the game, I\u2019m a savant when it comes to this stuff. So every type of action or terminology that they throw on me, I kind of already know. Just how they say it — you might call one action something else, but I\u2019ve been known to call it something else, but we\u2019re talking about the same thing. So it\u2019s very easy. That was very easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Louisville product also shared his confidence level with the 85 children that attended his introduction. Before leading them through drills, he let the crowd know he had spoken with Julius Randle (though not officially a Net just yet), and that the conversation was simple: \u201cWe\u2019re gonna shock the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sean Marks also spoke on Monday afternoon: \u201cI don\u2019t think anybody\u2019s ever questioned the confidence that [Brown] has had, right? And these guys, they\u2019ve got to this level by — as you heard them before — not believing in the doubters. And I think they\u2019ve got something to prove, they\u2019ve all got a chip on their shoulder, which I think you hear us talk about a lot with wanting guys that are self-motivated.\u201d<\/p>\n

That piece of it is not new for the Brooklyn Nets. Over the past few seasons, we\u2019ve heard players yearn for \u201csecond-chances\u201d or simply an opportunity to prove themselves, whether that be Keon Johnson or Josh Minott or Ziaire Williams or Dennis Schr\u00f6der. This is not Mikel Brown Jr. who (understandably, justifiably) thinks, or rather knows he is that guy. He is the man.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we interviewed him at the combine in Chicago, you know, he spent a lot of time interviewing us, which I love,\u201d said Marks. \u201cI love the interaction. Going back and forth, how would he fit in Brooklyn, how we see him and so forth, it was — it was great banter, going back and forth with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown Jr., as he will tell you, is a coach\u2019s son<\/a>. You can tell. He speaks with great reverence of a point guard\u2019s duty, and said he\u2019s been studying game tape of Joshua Jefferson and Tyler Bilodeau to see how they can fit together once Summer League rolls around.<\/p>\n

Both he and Joshua Jefferson smiled when talking about recent practice days at HSS Training Facility, admitting that they are both real happy to get back in the gym after a tiring draft process.<\/p>\n

Jefferson, the #28 pick, says that working on his outside shooting is his main focus right now but that he is indeed as versatile as they come, adding: \u201cI think my defensive ability at the high level can be undersold a little bit. I think I can move my feet pretty well, guard one-through-five, so that\u2019s what I\u2019m going to try to prove on day one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jefferson was not listed on Brooklyn\u2019s initial Summer League squad…<\/p>\n

…but only because the Minnesota-Brooklyn trade cannot be finalized until July 6th at the earliest. Therefore, Jefferson will not be able to play in the California Classic, which ends on the 6th. He is expected to play in Las Vegas Summer League though. However, Nolan Traore and Grant Nelson are not. Both players are rehabbing injury.<\/p>\n

Marks did clarify that Nolan is \u201cexpected to be full return for training camp in early September, so he won\u2019t miss much time,\u201d after a scope on his right knee. He also clarified that the issue cropped up during the season. Nelson, who may wind up with the third two-way, had a leg procedure after the season.<\/p>\n

Following Brooklyn\u2019s presser, Mike Scotto of HoopsHype reported that Ochai Agbaji and Jalen Wilson were not tendered qualifying offers, making them unrestricted free agents…<\/p>\n

However, the Nets did exercise their team option on Malachi Smith, though it is a non-guaranteed contract…<\/p>\n

It is unlikely Smith makes the team out of training camp, but you never know. Though not official yet, it seems likely that Brooklyn\u2019s two-way contracts will belong to Tyler Bilodeau, Chaney Johnson, and Grant Nelson, with the latter once again joining the Nets for Summer League ball.<\/p>\n

Brooklyn tips off Summer League play at 5:00 p.m. ET on Saturday, July 4th, playing against the Sacramento Kings in SacTown. That\u2019s right. Darius Acuff Jr. vs. Mikel Brown Jr.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this week, Net Income defined Brooklyn\u2019s decision to select Mikel Brown Jr. at No. 6 overall as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,11879,389,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-281954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-nets-features","tag-nets-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281954","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=281954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}