The Brooklyn Nets were one of a small handful of teams with spending power this offseason. That position could have let them pitch restricted free agents or take on bad salary via a trade with picks attached.
Instead, Brooklyn chose to ink several smaller, short-term deals for role players like Keon Ellis (two years, $18 million), Josh Minott (two years, $9 million) and Moritz Wagner (two years, $19 million). The Nets did well to secure team options on all three of those agreements, as well as the two-year, $20 million pact they inked with presumptive starting center Day’Ron Sharpe.
A charitable view of Brooklyn’s summer, which also included swapping Nic Claxton for Julius Randle and a five-spot jump from No. 28 to No. 33 in the draft, is that it preserved flexibility. A harsher analyst would say it was unambitious and might be remembered as a missed opportunity.
Brooklyn didn’t do any damage to its big-picture fortunes. Mikel Brown Jr. looks like a sensible pick at No. 5, but it’s hard to get past the feeling that a little more aggression could have paid off.