The Brooklyn Nets Are In A Tough Spot: 2024 Free Agency/Offseason Series – Ep 16

The Brooklyn Nets Are In A Tough Spot: 2024 Free Agency/Offseason Series – Ep 16

welcome back everybody I’m Yosi Goslin NBA salary cap expert and in this video I want to discuss the Brooklyn Nets a team that has a surplus of draft picks after trading Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving and a bunch of upcoming cap space that they’re going to try to use to bring in an All-Star maybe two so that’s what they’re hoping to do but they are also just really bad right now and they’re staring down the barrel of a rebuild so I want to also go over what that scenario could be like and just weigh the downside of continuing down this path versus taking a step back and resetting things but before I get into that this is still a pretty new channel so if you’re new to the channel or uh if you’ve been here before Please Subscribe and like if you haven’t already it would help with the Channel’s growth tremendously but let’s take a look at the Net’s payroll so far and see what their situation is like heading into the off season so they are set to operate as an over the cap team meaning that they’re only going to be able to increase their payroll via trade resigning their own free agents and uh they have several spending exceptions they could use to increase uh payroll now whatever they do they are not going to want to exceed the $171.3 million luxury tax line uh they are about $37 million below it though which is plenty of flexibility for them to resign to Claxton and field the rest of the roster after spending over $170 million in luxury tax payments between 2021 and 2023 they’re going to want some Financial relief especially while the team has is this bad now as far as trade opportunities go they have plenty of expiring contracts that they can use toward salary matching uh mainly Ben Simmons $40 million amount which can go a long way to help acquire just about anybody that becomes available and they also have a surplus of first round pick that they can use a sweeteners mainly from Phoenix they can trade a maximum of seven first round picks and I imagine that that’s what they mainly want to do uh include in their uh trade packages to get a potential All-Star someone Nick claxon is ineligible to extend before the end of the season so he is going to become an unrestricted free agent the Nets will have his full bird rights so they won’t have any restrictions of what they could sign him to now I can see his next contract breaking above the $20 million annual range uh more than what guys like Clint capella yaka purle uh Jared Allen what that what that tier of Center are currently making now I don’t think that the Center Market is strong enough that he’ll be able to get significantly more than that but I could be wrong but this is a salary projection I could see him getting roughly $22 million annually now however much claxon ends up getting I think there’s a very strong likelihood that the net structure his contract so he has a decrease in year two while increasing in subsequent Seasons the reason for that is because it gives the Nets a little more cap space in 2025 they did the same exact thing with Cam Johnson and his contract last summer and I would expect him to do the same with Claxton I want to quickly touch on Mel Bridges because he’s also extend tion eligible but for a brief window from October 1st until the start of the regular season later that month this is the most he can get 3 years 113 million and I’m sure the Nets will offer it but I highly doubt he accepts it and that’s mainly because he I think could probably get a lot more as a free agent in 2026 the salary cap is going to keep rising and I think a big Baseline for what he could be getting uh depends on what OJ and anobi gets this summer uh very possible that that contract EX exceeds this extension amount but if bridges does want to extend with the Nets I think it also makes more sense to do it next year when he get out of fourth year that’s roughly $43 million now because of the timing of this particular extension if he were to take it it would make him ineligible to be traded for the rest of the season in case the Nets were interested in pivoting later down the line conversely though if traded first he would not be able to extend with his new team for 6 months now before I get into what the net potentially do this season I want to show their cap space projection for next year so keep in mind I plugged in Nick Claxton with that projected salary I gave him with that decrease in year two and they’re project they’re expected to have two first round picks next year one from Phoenix and one that could likely come from Oklahoma City through some complicated pick swaps now they’re in a position to generate somewhere between $3 to $50 million in cap space I could see them moving on from Dorian FY Smith at some point which could help further increase those project ections now some of these factor in cam Thomas and Dron sharp making it to restricted free agency at a minimum they could have about like $30 million in cap space while being able to go over the cap later and resign them assuming that they’re not extended so I bring this up because both those guys are extension eligible this summer as well but uh and with Camp Thomas in particular if he extends and he could command somewhere between like 20 to $25 million annually that could significantly decrease their cap space if he’s extended now if they don’t extend him instead he would make it to restricted free agency and you would have that $12 million cap hold interfering with their cap space so how it would work is they have that $12 million occupying their space they spend their cap space then they could go over the cap to resign them to whatever they want and also in Brooklyn’s quest to acquire an Allstar it’s very possible that another team will covet cam Thomas in a trade but if they extend him now it’s going to C complicate the salary matching component involving him so for all these reasons I just outlined the Nets may not extend dayon sharp or Camp Thomas however if they are able to accomplish a lot of their goals early on in the off season then yeah they might as well extend them and before I get into pip dream scenarios I want to go over what a potential rebuild for the Nets could look like because they just experienced the absolute harshest downside of being bad and not having control of your Draft when they conveyed the third overall pick to Houston last month so for those that don’t understand why the Nets can’t simply rebuild it’s because they still owe a good amount of draft Equity to the Rockets from the James Harden trade they still owe an unprotected first in 2026 and pick swaps in 2025 and 2027 so they basically can bottom out for the next three seasons and in last year’s trade deadline the Rockets reportedly offered a combination of some of Brooklyn’s picks back to them and Jaylen green for Mel Bridges and the Nets declined and Jaylen green was went on an absolute heater uh shortly after now I highly doubt that this was the entire package on the table and whatever was offered back then it’s probably worse now uh if the Rockets are still interested in Mikel Bridges but I’m just trying to illustrate how much of their draft Equity is still controlled by Houston now I feel that at this point the Nets could get back to relevance faster if they enter a brief rebuild which would involve getting some of these picks back back if such an offer is still on the table because the longer that they strike out on potential All-Star targets the more opportunities to select and develop young players pass by and the more they’ll get punished so let’s say the Nets are able to trade mckel Bridges to the rockets and they get back Jaylen green the third overall pick in this year’s draft and they uh cancel the 2025 first round swap so now the Nets have two lottery picks to look forward to over these next two seasons uh that they’re able to bring in develop and they still have enough salary cap flexibility to have over $60 million in 2025 so now you go into the next two seasons with a lot less pressure to overachieve just for the sake of not conveying a valuable pick and you have more time to develop guys and you still have the assets with the restricted free agents and some of their young players to pursue Allstars if they become available they probably won’t be in a position to compete or entice Allstar anytime soon if they go down this path but I feel that this path and the current path that they’re on right now have pretty equal probability outcomes in terms of how long it’ll take to be relevant again so I think this is a totally fine trade and outcome for the Rockets if they decide to Pivot because at least here they’re actually building towards something so what kind of scenario are the that’s hoping for I don’t think bringing in a guy like Donovan Mitchell or Trey young is really going to thread the for them even in this relatively weak Eastern Conference so I’m going to go with Yannis send Koo as my example I don’t necessarily think he’s available right now but there are teams definitely hoping that something changes in Milwaukee and he is the type of guy that I think would really make all this worth it so I sent out Ben Simmons as a matching salary that trade works and however many first round picks are needed to make this happen and that’s just a simple transaction I’m sure it’d be way more complicated I’m sure more teams would be involved I’m sure they might have to include guys like cam Johnson or Cam Thomas but just for Simplicity sake I’m just making that swap uh and when you see the rest of when you see the team they get to fill out the rest of the roster and barely avoid the tax they wouldn’t have enough flexibility under the tax to use the mid-level exception but that’s fine because this front office is actually pretty good at convincing good vets to sign for the veteran minimum like last season it was Dennis Smith Jr Lonnie walk ER so I’m sure they might find a couple more studs with that and they still have some other players left in this scenario like Dorian fny Smith Dennis shuder that they could use for salary matching purposes and uh combined with whatever draft picks they have left or some of these other players that teams might covet to get a potential other All-Star or starter level player and now I’m looking ahead with Giannis and tent kumbo in but instead of swapping Ben Simmons expiring contract for him now I swapped cam Johnson and Dorian which is probably a more likely trade anyways and Brooklyn might prefer that just because they do have money for this season so with them out in Yannis in they are able to generate close to $40 million in 2025 cap space now that isn’t quite enough for a player like Donovan Mitchell and his max which is about $10 million more than this but they’re close enough where they could potentially leverage a sign in trade that could involve some of their restricted free agents like cam Thomas or Dron sharp assuming they hadn’t been extended yet or some other players that they have under contract so in theory yes the Nets do have the resources and the flexibility to pull something like this off and this is the type of build that in my opinion would make all this worth it but I’m just very skeptical that they’ll be able to pull anything like this off and when weighing the downside of what would happen if they can’t do something quite like this I just feel like I would strongly consider getting my picks back for Mel Bridges if that opportunity was still available it’s totally possible that by the time an Allstar does become available and does want to go to Brooklyn enough time would have passed that they may have been better off spending these this next year to rebuilding through their draft and accumulating more assets and developing guys so that’s my opinion on the whole situation but let me know what you guys think do you think the net should continue on this path and hope that they can get accomplish this type of scenario or should they just pull the plug and enter a rebuild let me know in the comments

The post-Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving era has not been kind to the Nets. For what it’s worth, I think they made out really nicely in their respective trades. They now have a surplus of draft equity that could be enough to acquire an All-Star. But will one become available to them? And what kind would they need to really elevate this roster to title contention? I’m skeptical they’ll be able to transform this roster to where they want it to be anytime soon. They might be better off negotiating a trade with the Rockets that allows them to get control of their draft picks back so they can take a step back and enter a rebuild. They might be able to get back to relevance faster that way with some young players they can build a future with.

0:00 Intro
0:43 Nets 2024-25 payroll analysis
1:59 Nicolas Claxton
2:57 Mikal Bridges
3:58 Nets 2025 cap space projection and why they might hold off on extending Cam Thomas and Day’Ron Sharpe
5:45 The case for the Nets trading Mikal Bridges to Houston for their picks back
7:14 What a Nets rebuild could look like with some of their picks back
8:21 Giannis Antetokounmpo pipedream scenario

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