On Friday, the Nets will receive a tough reminder when they travel to Dallas.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t matter how much a team wants to tank during the season; there is no guarantee that a team will win the draft lottery, or that another team that did not tank won\u2019t be victorious.<\/p>\n
The Mavericks were the most recent example.<\/p>\n
While the Nets, Jazz, Wizards and Hornets all purposefully tanked last season, and the latter three had the best odds to win, the pingpong balls chose Dallas. They didn\u2019t aim to tank yet still won the lottery with the 12th-worst record of the season.<\/p>\n
It was a complete shocker for a team that traded away the face of its franchise, Luka Don\u010di\u0107. However, that\u2019s how the cookie crumbled and it could go that way again this year.<\/p>\n
As of Tuesday morning, the Nets have fallen to sixth in the lottery odds and are four games behind the Pelicans for the top spot after winning three of their last four games.<\/p>\n
There is no guarantee that they will be picking at the top of the draft in June. This means, no matter the result, the Nets still have to draft and develop their young players well for any hope of a franchise turnaround.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only thing we care about is the process,\u201d Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez said after practice on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg (32) handles the ball during the third quarter against the Houston Rockets at American Airlines Center. Andrew Dieb-Imagn Images<\/p>\n
The coach is the prime messenger of this mission and has been tasked to make the Nets\u2019 five rookies into key future pieces.<\/p>\n
All of the rookies have played in Long Island except No. 8 overall pick Egor D\u00ebmin. They have flowed between the two teams, and both Drake Powell and Ben Saraf were sent to Long Island on Monday. While it seems counterproductive to their development plan with the future of the franchise in mind, Fern\u00e1ndez said the communication and expectations remain the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever the plan is for them, that\u2019s what we want to see from them when they play with our club,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez said. \u201cFor example, if I\u2019m asking Ben to set up pick and rolls better and stay away from inefficient pull-up 3s, I don\u2019t want him to do it there and I don\u2019t want him to do it here. But then he needs to know where a good three is at all times. That goes for everybody. Same with the defense.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nets head coach Jordi Fernandez reacts during the first quarter against the New Orleans Pelicans at Barclays Center. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are no emotional decisions here,\u201d he added. \u201cWe have a schedule for these guys based on if they\u2019re accomplishing certain things and what the team needs here to compete.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fern\u00e1ndez\u2019s goal is to have the rookies play between 50 and 70 games this year and get as many reps as possible. Through their NBA trials, all of them have improved in production.<\/p>\n
Against the Pelicans on Saturday, Danny Wolf had seven points, four rebounds and two assists while D\u00ebmin added seven assists and Saraf tallied seven points and four assists. Powell also had a big game against the Hornets, scoring 10 points and racking up four assists and three steals.<\/p>\n
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Wolf, who was called up when Michael Porter Jr. went down with a back injury for two games, has proved himself to stay in Brooklyn over the past six games after only three NBA showings prior. He is averaging 11.5 points, 5.5 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game on 45 percent shooting across an average of 22.3 minutes in that span.<\/p>\n
Danny Wolf #2 of the Brooklyn Nets handles the ball during the game against the Utah Jazz on December 4, 2025. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cCoaching staff and front office have made it very clear that they want us to get as many reps as possible, wherever that may be,\u201d Wolf said. \u201cWhen I was in Long Island, I just started taking advantage of it and when I got my opportunity here, I just tried taking it and running with it. And no matter where I\u2019m at, I\u2019m just going to keep working on my game.\u201d<\/p>\n
While seeing No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg on the court will have the Nets wondering what could have been, the development of the players in-house matters for the long-term plan. That\u2019s guaranteed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Friday, the Nets will receive a tough reminder when they travel to Dallas. It doesn\u2019t matter how…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,355,99,10220,9139,5235,21,7939,9,24,63,319],"class_list":["post-66356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-nets","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-cooper-flagg","tag-dallas-mavericks","tag-egor-demin","tag-nba","tag-nba-draft","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\/66356","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=66356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}