{"id":78954,"date":"2025-12-23T10:49:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T10:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/78954\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T10:49:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T10:49:20","slug":"rookie-nolan-traore-makes-most-of-rare-nets-chance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/78954\/","title":{"rendered":"Rookie Nolan Traore makes most of rare Nets chance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Egor D\u00ebmin has earned the most trust of the Nets\u2019 five first-round picks. Danny Wolf has displayed his versatility, flirting with double-doubles. Drake Powell\u2019s elite athleticism has allowed his defensive skills to translate. Ben Saraf has received the second-most starts of Brooklyn\u2019s rookies and leads the team in assists per 36 minutes (6.0).<\/p>\n

Nolan Traore\u2019s got next.<\/p>\n

After spending the majority of his rookie campaign on Long Island and appearing in a team-low six games with the Nets \u2014 including 24 minutes of action in the previous seven-plus weeks \u2014 Traore, the 19th pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, made the most of a rare opportunity to demonstrate his potential in Sunday\u2019s 96-81 win over the Raptors<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Playing a career-high 22 minutes, the 19-year-old Frenchman scored eight points \u2014 after scoring a total of seven points in his first six appearances \u2014 with three rebounds, two assists, one steal and one block.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe looked confident, he looked in rhythm,\u201d Nets head coach Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez said. \u201cHe shot it when he had to, he was solid with the ball, he played pick-and-roll, he looked fast, he kept, defensively, the ball in front.<\/p>\n

\"BrooklynBrooklyn Nets\u2019 Nolan Traore (88) drives to the basket past Toronto Raptors\u2019 Scottie Barnes (4) during the second half of a game at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. on Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025. Heather Khalifa for the NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did a great job overall. [It] looked like all the minutes he\u2019s played [on] Long Island right now are paying off. And now he came here with a lot of confidence, and this is what it\u2019s all about. Minutes are the best coach to develop you. And he took advantage of those minutes [on] Long Island, and now he\u2019s taking advantage of his minutes here, and he was a big part of us winning this game.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Cam Thomas still out <\/a>and Powell bothered by another ankle injury, Traore could get another chance to showcase his speed and play-making in tonight\u2019s game in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

In 13 games with the Nets\u2019 G-League team, Traore, a 6-foot-3 guard, averaged 18.8 points and 6.5 assists while shooting 43.1 percent on 3s.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really helps a lot that when you don\u2019t play, you can play some good minutes [on] Long Island,\u201d Traore said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of the same rules as here so it\u2019s easy to translate those to Brooklyn \u2026 I think the more you play, the more you get confidence and [Sunday\u2019s game] is a great example.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was waiting for this game and I just took the opportunity they gave me. I think I did good and I hope it will continue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BrooklynNolan Traore (88) celebrates his 3-point shot during the first half of a game against the Toronto Raptors at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. Heather Khalifa for the NY Post<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFollow all the basketball buzz in Brooklyn\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Nets by Brian Lewis, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

As their rookies take baby steps, the Nets are already being haunted by one of the best draft classes in years \u2014 featuring Cooper Flagg, Kon Knueppel, Dylan Harper, VJ Edgecombe, Derik Queen, Jeremiah Fears and Tre Johnson \u2014 after last season\u2019s failed tank job resulted in Brooklyn\u2019s first pick coming at No. 8 (D\u00ebmin).<\/p>\n

Now, Fern\u00e1ndez has the team on pace to again destroy the front office\u2019s grand plans of failure. After losing their first seven games and opening 3-16, the Nets have gone 5-3 in December while allowing the fewest points in the league this month.<\/p>\n

There are five teams with a worse record than the Nets (8-19), approaching a draft with three strong contenders for the top pick (Kansas\u2019 Darryn Peterson, Duke\u2019s Cameron Boozer, BYU\u2019s AJ Dybantsa). <\/p>\n

The NBA\u2019s sixth-worst team has a 27.6 percent chance of getting a top three pick \u2014 the worst team has a 40.1 percent chance \u2014 and can fall as far as 10th in the lottery.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe focus is to give 100 percent of your effort every single game,\u201d D\u00ebmin said. \u201cThat\u2019s the biggest focus for all of us right now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Egor D\u00ebmin has earned the most trust of the Nets\u2019 five first-round picks. Danny Wolf has displayed his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,355,99,21,9,24,63,319],"class_list":{"0":"post-78954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-brooklyn","9":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","10":"tag-brooklyn-nets","11":"tag-brooklyn-news","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78954","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=78954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}