Almost all NFL fan bases exude some level of optimism during the preseason. Despite 57 years of watching failure, many Jets fans seem all too eager to join the fray, buying into the glimpses of competence from practices and the two exhibition games.

Never mind that Friday’s 17-0 victory in Pittsburgh wasn’t real football given who did and didn’t play. “Hey, Geno Smith looked great, David Bailey had a sack, and the defense even picked off two passes. All is well!”

It is more than likely that Gang Green will better last season’s miserable 3-14 campaign by some measure. The organization improved the talent in the trade/free market and the 2026 Draft, so expectations should be higher.

Unfortunately, the depth chart contains too many questions that must be answered in the affirmative before anyone can take this squad seriously. I’m going to argue below that there isn’t a position group without a major concern.

And that’s before we take into account the unknown variable of injuries, a depressing fact of life in such a violent game. So while health is always the primary concern, it will be ignored in the following exercise on where the Jets stand heading into Friday’s preseason finale against the Giants:

Quarterback:

Primary Concern: Mobility

Smith will turn 36 in October and isn’t the scrambler he was when the Jets originally drafted him in 2013’s second round. Per ProFootballFocus.com, he took off 18 times in 15 games last season, tied for the 23^rd most in the league despite being one of its most pressured QBs due to an abhorrent offensive line in Las Vegas. As a result, over a quarter of those pressures turned into sacks, the second highest pressure-to-sack percentage in the league (100 dropbacks minimum). The worst, by far, was Jets rookie Brady Cook, who appears to have no shot at a spot on the 2026 53-man roster. Smith, who has been somewhat hobbled by a tweaked ankle during training camp, will be protected by a line with more potential in New York, but it would be fantastical to believe he’ll be kept clean on many key downs. With no veteran backup QB on the immediate horizon, the Jets have to be crossing their fingers in hoping that Smith can move around the pocket enough to avoid taking the biggest hits.

Running back:

Primary concern: Yards left on the field

One would categorize Breece Hall as elusive, but not all the stats measure up. Sure, he’s got breakaway ability when he finds space, but he also tends to leave plenty of yards on the field. The knock on Hall from some analysts is that he often goes down too easily, and I’m not referring to his getting tripped up by the deplorable MetLife Stadium turf en route to a sure touchdown two weeks ago. The Jets as a team ranked 29^th in the league last season in broken tackles on rush attempts, per pro-football-reference.com. You’d think that the truck that is Braelon Allen would be a broken tackle machine—he wasn’t credited with any on his 18 carries before a knee injury ended his campaign after four games. Isaiah Davis has a little bite in his game, but he’s the RB3 for a reason. Generally, a running back’s effectiveness is directly correlated with his club’s offensive line, which partially explains why the position is relatively underpaid. However, poor RB efficiency can have an outsized effect on an offense, be it via a stuff that puts the team behind the chains or with a failed short yardage conversion. Hall, whose 33 carries for a loss were the league’s third-most last season, got rewarded with a contract extension this offseason to be more consistent, not merely explosive.

Receivers/tight ends:

Primary concern: Separation/hands

Garrett Wilson, whose knee injury forced him to be shut down after seven games last season, seems primed for a big year. But what will happen when an opponent like New England knows how to take him out of the game with mixed coverages? That might continue to pose a problem for the Jets, who seem to be betting large on 2025 trade acquisition AD Mitchell suddenly unlocking his potential. Mitchell has the size and speed to gain advantages on opposing defensive backs, but drops have been a bugaboo in his two NFL seasons. His 15.4% drop rate last season was the third-worst among the league’s 76 receivers with at least 50 targets last season, per PFF. In total, the Jets registered the third-most drops, which is some achievement when you consider their middle-of-the-pack number of targets, according to Pro Football Reference. As for the rest of the crew, they either struggle with hands (Arian Smith) or creating separation (pick any tight end). Omar Cooper Jr. and Kenyon Sadiq (after he is cleared from offseason hernia surgery) might have the goods, but will they become apparent as NFL rookies? Keeping Smith upright is dependent on people getting open.

Offensive line:

Primary concern: Chain weak link

The Jets are bringing back four of their five linemen from last season, swapping out John Simpson at left guard and replacing him with Dylan Parham. Three of the others (Olu Fashanu, Armand Membou, and Joe Tippmann) are recent high Draft picks who could easily grow into better blockers. Unfortunately, an offensive line is the proverbial chain link fence, and one weak link can undo a best-laid plan. That weak link is center Josh Myers, who was originally brought on from Green Bay prior to last season to serve as a versatile backup. When Alijah Vera-Tucker was lost for the season during training camp, Tippmann moved from center to guard and Myers was forced to play all 1048 offensive snaps. It did not go great. Myers received PFF’s second-worst grade among the 34 centers with at least 500 snaps last season. He was responsible for 28 pressures, tied for the third most, and was flagged a fourth-most seven times. And he’s back, without so much as meaningful competition. Not that PFF is the definitive prognosticator, but I have to believe that Myers’ continued presence went a long way towards Gang Green’s somewhat promising offensive line placing 21^st in its preliminary rankings.

Defensive line/edge rushers:

Primary concern: Interior pass rush push

The Jets engineered a major overhaul of their defense this offseason, focusing on run support and adding experience. While it would take epic decimations for the unit to suck as much as last season, not every issue was solvable overnight. For instance, David Bailey, the No. 2 overall pick who by all accounts has been terrific in camp, should help improve on Gang Green’s second-lowest sack total last season. However, rookie mistakes like flybys that allow opposing QBs to step up will happen on occasion. Without any interior push, a QB will easily find lanes to take off. Per PFF, Jets interior linemen aggregated just seven sacks all last season, four of them unexpectedly coming from rotational tackle Jowon Briggs. The Jets are putting a lot on the hefty body of T’Vondre Sweat, whom they acquired in a March trade with Tennessee for edge rusher Jermaine Johnson. Heading into his third pro season, Sweat will occupy blockers to make the Jets more formidable against the run. His PFF pass rushing metrics, however, weren’t so phenomenal, and that was when he lined up alongside one of the league’s best interior linemen in Jeffrey Simmons. Nor did Sweat ordinarily play more than half of the Titans’ defensive snaps last season. He will also have to adjust to the Jets’ new 3-4 base. In that alignment, Head Coach Aaron Glenn is hoping he’ll get more out of Harrison Phillips plus some production out of newcomers Joseph Ossai, Kingsley Enagbare, and David Onyemata. I’m thinking the pass rush will be all about Bailey, with some intermittent big plays out of Will McDonald IV.

Linebackers:

Primary concern: Speed

Any pass rush can be muted if the coverage off the snap isn’t sticky. The Jets’ linebackers were often too slow to react to backs and tight ends moving out into the flats or receivers crossing into their zones last season. Bringing back Demario Davis for a third round will surely help with organization and general Football IQ on the field, but at 37, he’s lost some quickness. Jamien Sherwood is a converted safety who doesn’t run like one. QBs pick him apart weekly. I hope the solution isn’t to drop Bailey and McDonald into coverage like Glenn has been doing this preseason—he claimed on Monday that this is the proper time to experiment. We’ll see.

Defensive backfield:

Primary concern: Everything

Going the whole year without an interception was an embarrassment in its own multiverse, but then there was this: Opposing QBs threw a touchdown on 7% of their attempts last season, the highest surrendered since the 2019 Dolphins. The team did not go out and acquire a shutdown corner—Brandon Stephens remains the highest paid and highest graded, and he was responsible for eight TDs, more than any NFL corner save for Washington’s Mike Sainristil last season, per PFF. Former Bear Nahshon Wright was only marginally better—he yielded seven TDs. Wright did pick off five passes, but was that an outlier? He had just one interception during his first three seasons in Dallas. The Bears obviously were fine with him moving on; the Jets got him for one year at $5.5 million in free agency. Elsewhere, Azareye’h Thomas showed some promise in his rookie season before it ended prematurely due to a shoulder injury. He may start at CB2 by default. In the slot, Jarvis Brownlee Jr., a penalty flag magnet, has the upper hand on D’Angelo Ponds, the second rounder whose camp has been mired by a strained calf. At safety, Minkah Fitzpatrick, who was dumped by Miami and signed to an extension in perhaps General Manager Darren Mougey’s most noteworthy transaction of the offseason, must prove he still has some playmaking in his bag. There’s an ongoing battle for who will line up next to him (and in what capacity) between Andre Cisco and Dane Belton, who has at least looked like a tackling beast as a box safety. Can this group stop the bleeding of explosive plays? Probably better than last season, but that’s a low bar.

Specialists:

Primary concern: Kicking the can on kickers

After a rare year where placekicking wasn’t the proverbial noose around the Jets’ neck, the organization allowed Nick Folk to walk away as a free agent. Yeah, he’ll be 42 in a little more than a month, but he missed one kick all last season, a 55-yard field goal against Atlanta, which he made up for by booming a 56-yarder at the final gun to win the game (which cost the franchise the No. 1 overall pick, but that’s beside the point). Jason Sanders reportedly just won the uninspiring competition over Cade York, though many still believe the Jets’ Week 1 kicker isn’t on the roster. Here we go again.

It was probably just a coincidence that the Yankees busted out for eight runs on 11 hits during Cody Bellinger’s return to the lineup in Sunday’s 8-3 victory over the visiting pests from Toronto.

Though the Bronx Bombers reached double digit hits just five times over the 25 games Bellinger was sidelined with a hamstring injury (while striking out 10-plus times on 14 occasions in that span), it wasn’t like the leftfielder led the hit parade in Sunday’s rout. He singled once in four plate appearances, whiffing twice.

However, the swap with impotent Heliot Ramos was a long overdue change of pace. To say that Ramos, who was acquired from the Giants on August 3 in exchange for a pair of 22-year old prospects toiling in Single A, had been “struggling” would be sugarcoating it. He had gone 6-for-53 (.113) over his 16 appearances in pinstripes with five walks and 18 strikeouts prior to Sunday’s day off. His swing looks like a tennis player’s backhand slice.

Yet Yankees Manager Aaron Boone had him hitting third in the order as recently as Saturday’s 4-3 defeat. That partially explains why New York has gone 22 consecutive games without scoring a run in a first inning, just two off the franchise record set in 2021.

Such poor judgement is why many Yankees fans believe their team is too often at a disadvantage come playoff time. Boone typically has a near unerring faith in his players, even when the rest of us know those players won’t get the job required in the moment done. He’ll send up guys to the plate in clutch situations who have no chance against the particular pitcher.

It’s a recurring theme over Boone’s tenure, most recently seen last season with shortstop Anthony Volpe. He rarely has these guys attempt to bunt—only two MLB clubs have fewer than the Yankees’ seven sacrifices this season.

To be fair, Boone deserves credit for holding the ballclub together during an injury plague that could have easily sent it plummeting into the middle of the muck that is the American League. New York is 38-33 since reigning AL MVP Aaron Judge last roamed right field on May 31, the AL’s fifth-best mark in that period. Designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton has been limited to 24 games and is in danger of missing the remainder of the season after hurting the non-injured calf during a recent workout. Bellinger’s somewhat lengthy absence then pretty much obliterated what was once an imposing middle of the order.

While I believe New York’s top-notch starting pitching (MLB’s fourth-best ERA and K-to-BB% ratio since June 1, per FanGraphs.com) is beyond Boone’s area of expertise, he hasn’t yet blown out a bullpen with relatively few reliable options as he’s done in past seasons. FanGraphs’s advanced relief pitching metrics, like win probability added and leverage indexes, have the Yankees at or near the top of baseball during these trying times. Anyone arguing over Boone’s button-pushing in this regard has an unbending bias.

The Yankees (74-56) are destined for their eighth postseason appearance in Boone’s nine seasons at the helm, primarily because the rest of the league has been thoroughly mediocre all year. None of the contenders for the third Wild Card is currently over .500. An AL East title, though, is questionable with Tampa Bay holding a three-game lead.

The overriding issue is that making the playoffs shouldn’t be this iconic franchise’s mission. Yet, how confident are Yankees fans that this squad is capable of turning it up under the brightest lights in October, even if Judge comes back?

So many numbers suggest otherwise. The Yankees are the only MLB team with a winning overall record and a losing record in one-run games. Though the runner on second quirk in extra innings reverts to the pre-pandemic rules in the postseason, it’s not a good sign that New York is 3-9 in such contests. I see it as a continuing indication that Boone and small ball can’t consistently coexist, even when the situation requires it. The Yankees don’t appear to be coached to put balls in play and move runners around. Meanwhile, the better pitchers in the playoffs generally don’t surrender enough home runs to be relied upon as the Bombers’ sole offensive production methodology in a series.

There are folks who insist that a Yankees manager under Brian Cashmasn is merely a puppet, that the General Manager writes the lineup and pitching procession in advance. Sticking with Ramos for so long—at the top of the order, no less—was a Cashman directive to avoid, or at least delay, criticism over the trade and the overall inadequacies of his deadline adjustments.

I find it difficult to believe that Boone has absolutely no agency after nine years. He comes across as too strong a competitor to succumb to ill-advised decisions from anyone. He seems fully aware that the heat of moments belongs to him.

That includes allowing the righty Ramos to strike out for a third time in four trips to the plate in Saturday’s eighth inning against Toronto’s righthanded Tyler Rogers. It took all of four pitches.

Fortunately, Bellinger’s return may have come in the nick of time to save Boone from further ridicule on this one divisive managerial decision.

On the basketball court, the Nets have too often come up short in the talent department. The team has sported just six winning seasons in the last two decades, with only two playoff series victories. In that span, they failed to reach the low bar of 30 wins eight times, including the deplorable last two seasons.

Yet the organization’s ability to spot talent in those who describe the often-ugly proceedings on TV and radio has been nearly impeccable. I dare you to find a roster of broadcasters with more elite depth than those who have been manning the mics in Brooklyn. These voices—Ian Eagle, Ryan Ruocco, Sarah Kustok, and Richard Jefferson, just to name a few from the TV side--aren’t just appreciated by Nets fans; they are nationally renowned, tabbed to call the sport’s biggest games on the major networks. The Nets’ broadcast room got so loaded that Michael Grady, who I could tell was destined for great things from the few opportunities he got to sub in for his more established colleagues, bolted to take the play-by-play job in Minnesota four years ago. He too can now be seen on the league’s Amazon and NBC broadcasts.

If only Nets General Manager Sean Marks had that kind of hit rate with his player personnel. Since his track record of late hasn’t been all that great (and yes, I know it’s apples and oranges—the league doesn’t allow Marks to get the pick of the litter who desire employment in the New York City market), the diehard fans who tune in religiously have too often been forced to rely on the announcers to induce some level of enjoyment. Fortunately, they have typically delivered.

So Nets fans should be extremely appreciative that the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame recognized radio play-by-play announcer Chris Carrino’s contributions by presenting him with the Curt Gowdy Electronic Media Award at Friday night’s gala at Mohegan Sun. Carrino, who has been the Nets’ lead radio voice since 2002, also called men’s and women’s basketball games at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics for NBC TV.

I can’t think of a more deserving honor for such a pro. In one of my first encounters with Carrino, I mentioned how much he sounded like Marty Glickman, not knowing at the time that he was mentored by the 1991 Curt Gowdy Award recipient during his college years at Fordham. It wasn’t just how Carrino tracked the plays using the terminology Glickman coined for the court’s geography without falling behind the action; his broadcasts build a story. He doesn’t get overly excited on every basket so that he has nowhere to go octave-wise when the game really gets intense, which I call the Kevin Harlan syndrome. Carrino follows the Glickman golden rule to “consider the audience.” Still, Carrino’s crunch-time calls can render goose bumps on even the most worn NBA consumer. That’s how great he is at his craft.

And should the contest turn one-sided, which has too often been the case with Brooklyn over the last few seasons, Carrino, with the able assistance of long-time analyst Tim Capstraw, can keep fans engaged with banter on a variety of topics, even if some are unrelated to basketball. You can always count on a half dozen or so clever pop culture references from the duo in every broadcast no matter the score.

Capstraw, as Carrino noted in Friday’s acceptance speech (which he of course knocked out of the park), has been more than a simple broadcasting parter. He has assisted Carrino, who was diagnosed with FSHD, a debilitating form of muscular dystrophy, in navigating the rigors of NBA seasons. I can confirm they share more than just a love of basketball and humor; they are both endowed with graciousness and kindness.

As such, Carrino’s Hall of Fame honor can’t be celebrated enough by those who support a Nets franchise that figures to again be irrelevant.

For a team so reliant on the explosiveness from Aaron Judge, the Yankees should feel rather fortunate that they’ve treaded water since the stress fracture in the outfielder’s right rib shut him down on May 31, going 23-23 while remaining within striking distance (three games) of first-place Tampa Bay in the AL East.

It’s not just the three-time MVP who has been hobbled. Perennially injured designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton’s last lineup appearance was on April 24 and centerfielder Trent Grisham, who went on the IL last month with a tweaked hamstring, has been running the bases and the outfield for much of the season like he is dragging my ancient legs. Whatever he had has now figuratively infected Cody Bellinger, whom the Yankees placed on the IL after Saturday’s contest in Philadelphia.

Those are the Bronx Bombers’ four highest-paid position players, comprising nearly half of the team’s 2026 payroll. The replacements’ plate appearances have been going to youngsters Jasson Dominguez and Spencer Jones and future journeyman Max Schuemann. None of them are hitting over .226.

It has made their games hard to watch. The Yankees struck out at least 10 times in 13 of their last 23 games. They are 27^th in MLB in runs scored since Judge exited the lineup, behind even the lowly Mets. You can tell when certain batters step in the box that they have almost no chance of making solid contact.

Still, the Yankees took two of three in Philly and in the prior series against Pittsburgh at Yankee Stadium. Overall, they’re 9-4 in their last 13 games, all against clubs over .500. They even salvaged the series finale against the juggernaut Dodgers last weekend. All while continuing to whiff a ton and scoring a little over the bare minimum of runs.

Given the extreme mediocrity in the American League, sustainability in the face of such adversity might not be as difficult a proposition for the Bombers as one would expect. A .500 record the rest of the way would give New York 87-88 wins. That could easily be enough to land a Wild Card slot. Outside of the division leaders, there are only two other AL clubs besides New York (59-46) with winning records. Three teams qualify for Wild Cards in each league. The math is in the Yankees’ favor.

Of course, the Yankees should always have grander desires than a mere postseason berth, even if former owner George Steinbrenner’s heirs have been seemingly squashing that ultimate mandate further down every year over the last decade. It’s been 17 years since their last World Series Championship; only the 1978-1996 drought has been longer since the franchise started calling themselves the Yankees in 1913.

Getting there comes first, and this team was always flawed before the injury bug struck. They’ve been getting by thanks mainly to exceptional pitching. Max Fried’s return gives the Yankees three starters capable of giving the club five-or-six strong innings on a fairly consistent basis. David Bednar has been a clutch closer with ten consecutive save conversions and the setup guys haven’t been the wormhole many dreaded; otherwise New York wouldn’t be leading MLB in bullpen ERA since June 1.

But without the big guns at the top of the order—Manager Aaron Boone has been cryptic all season about Judge’s and Stanton’s return timelines--it’s going to take a collective effort to support the arms through the dog days of August. And some outside reinforcements could help too.

The MLB trade deadline is a week away and the Yankees are expected to be buyers. Every year, the Yankees are said to be “in the mix” for the top targets. Rarely do they reel in the biggest fish. General Manager Brian Cashman is sometimes correct in holding onto his top prospects like Ben Rice; more often, the Yankees miss the boat and end up settling for other clubs’ second-tier trade bait.

This year’s needs are obvious—more heat out of the bullpen and production from the left side of the infield and catcher. Minnesota catcher Ryan Jeffers, who is on an expiring contract, is allegedly available. He’s the antithesis of Austin Wells—a put-it-in-play, high OBP, righty hitter with average power. Not as good defensively, either. In other words, I’d put low odds on Cashman trading for him.

I’d imagine most potential trading partners will be calling on George Lombard Jr., the 21-year old who is back at AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre after an injury interrupted a nice season. He’s the shortstop of the future; the present, though, is being manned by the underwhelming duo of Jose Caballero and Anthony Volpe.

It would probably take Lombard-plus to pry shortstop C.J. Abrams away from Washington, assuming the Nationals are listening to offers for the two-time All-Star as rumored. Again, I’d be shocked if Cashman pulled the trigger on such a win-now move. The same principle goes for San Diego’s flamethrowing closer Mason Miller.

There may indeed by some new faces in the Bronx by next week. However, I don’t expect the makeup to change all that much. The Yankees will instead hope to continue to buy time for their main production sources to get healthy with dogged pitching and just enough timely hits.

Maybe it will get them through the dog days.

The Jets’ rookies report to training camp on Saturday, with the veterans to follow on July 28. Every team starts their season at 0-0, so fans can almost always find valid reasons for optimism, including those rooting for a franchise on as disgraceful a run as New York’s. The Jets haven’t earned a playoff berth since 2010, the longest postseason drought among the teams in all four major sports.

I get why the remaining diehard Jets fans who have yet to submit to the torture feel better about the impending 2026 campaign than in previous years. There is some intriguing young talent on the roster being rebuilt by General Manager Darren Mougey, who has yet to make the same gaffes that marred his predecessors’ regimes.

I’m just curious as to what fans will qualify as a successful season. My former bar was getting to watch a home playoff game; that seems absurd. Even a wild card berth appears far-fetched, especially when the owner NEVER proclaims a playoff mandate.

DraftKings has the Jets’ over/under win total at 5.5, so would an improvement from 3-14 to, say, 6-11 suffice? Would it even be good enough for Head Coach Aaron Glenn to survive Black Monday 2027 to get to a third season? Glenn may be on the hot seat with many fans, but no Jets insider believes Woody Johnson will fire him during the season, even if the team isn’t showing enough progress. The New York Post’s Brian Costello said on as podcast that he considered the early 2024 Robert Saleh pink slip an outlier, since Saleh was brother Christopher’s choice while Woody was abroad as the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Unlike last season, when I correctly predicted that an 0-6 start was more than plausible (the losing streak actually extended to 0-7), Gang Green has a real opportunity to stay in the hunt into November. Half of their opponents among their first eight games aren’t expected to be any good either.

Hence, any mention of the “T” word, or contrived monikers like a “March for Arch” Manning, the Texas junior who is rated by some experts as the No. 1 quarterback in the 2027 Draft class, is premature. In the anything can happen NFL, tanking is reserved for certifiable lost causes.

However, what should happen if the Jets underperform in the first half, which is a possibility given the fact that the team will be integrating its eighth different offensive coordinator (Frank Reich) in the last ten years and the QB (Geno Smith) will turn 36 in October with no proven backup? Haven’t even the slowest of Jets fans figured out that nothing is gained from meaningless late-season wins?

Timing matters. If the Jets somehow manage to start 4-4 but then falter down the stretch to 6-11 due to something like Smith getting hurt, that should be preferable to fans over a 3-3 close following a 3-8 start. Ironically, the idiot Johnson would probably consider the latter as a better sign to keep Glenn aboard under the presumption that the team “didn’t quit.”

Either way, it’s hard to call such a desultory result “a success”, though I can all but guarantee that the organization will try through a raise in 2027 ticket prices. Other franchises wouldn’t find this acceptable, but the Jets continue to ingrain upon their fan base the illusion of false hope. Going from 3-14 to 6-11 (or even 7-10!) is progress!

It can be, or maybe not, depending on the lessons learned.

Hope is an essential component of sports fandom, so I don’t want to diminish anyone’s mood too much about this team before a regular season snap has occurred. However, Jets fans who have endured so much pain in the last 15 years should always approach a season managed by Johnson with an appropriate amount of skepticism.

As I’ve mentioned ad nauseum in this forum, the NFL is a HC/QB driven league. Coaching staffs who out-scheme their opponents and signal callers who can execute those schemes with efficiency and explosiveness have decided advantages. No wonder the Jets always seem to be playing from behind before the opening kickoff.

Johnson has been an impediment with his penchant for banking on defensive-oriented HCs with no head coaching experience and QBs who are either too young or too old to lead the way forward on the field. Glenn, who said he will be calling the defensive plays after appearing like an observer in his rookie season as a HC, and the older Reich, whose most recent play calling hasn’t exactly wowed analysts, have a lot to prove. Meanwhile, Smith is coming off a terrible season in Las Vegas. What could go wrong?

It’s not quite a tale as old as time, but for Jets fans to witness a real happy ending, the team is going to need a professional script.

The East is no longer Least.

LeBron James deciding on Friday to join a Sixers squad alongside the likes of Joel Embiid, Jaylen Brown, Tyrese Maxey, and VJ Edgecombe in a Conference that will boast Jayson Tatum in Boston, Cade Cunningham in Detroit, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo in Miami, Kawhi Leonard (pending investigation) and Scottie Barnes in Toronto, and the return of Tyrese Halliburton in Indiana—not to mention the reprise of the Jalen Brunson-led defending Champion Knicks—should finally even the scale, if not tip it in the opposite direction, against the long-dominant West.

Good luck—and, perhaps more importantly, good health—will likely determine the ultimate victor in the coming Great Race.

The Nets, unfortunately, will continue to hold different ambitions. The talent disparity when measured against the above clubs looks to be so vast, fans will have to squint hard at small moments to find signs of hope. A Mikel Brown Jr. heat check here, an Egor Demin rim attack there. The team will at least try this season, but the roster is so young and defensively deficient that wins will remain hard to come by. Oddsmakers have set Brooklyn with the Conference’s lowest over/under at 22.5, just 2.5 wins above last season’s egregious tank.

Outright tanking for a third consecutive season, of course, won’t be an option, as the rights to Brooklyn’s 2027 first-round pick is subject to a swap with Houston, the last remnant of the 2021 James Harden blockbuster. That was the last time the organization put all their chips in the middle to compete for a title. Too bad that it might be a few more years before ownership is prepared to buy back in given the ages and contract terms of all those star-studded lineups the overmatched Nets will be chasing.

Which means the Nets should be in no hurry to extend Michael Porter Jr., the team’s leading scorer last season before he was shut down for good on March 10 with a (cough, cough) strained hamstring. Porter’s 5-year, nearly $180 million deal he signed while with Denver expires after the 2026-27 season.

Not that Nets General Manager Sean Marks is showing any anxiety over Porter’s status—he has all season to get him to ink a new deal, and his remarks at the Las Vegas Summer League confirmed as much. Which might be why Porter’s agent, Mark Bartelstein, seems to be the one doing the clamoring. Bartelstein recently spoke of how much his client has thrived in Brooklyn and his wishes for it to continue.

It’s true that Porter had a fantastic first half of last season. I thought he was robbed of an All-Star berth—if Brooklyn’s woeful record was indeed a factor, how did Pascal Siakam, with worse numbers on a worse Indiana squad, make it over him?

However, it’s not like Porter contributed to winning. The Nets were 14-38 in the games he suited up. That .269 winning percentage exceeded the 20% win rate without him, but one might have expected a greater difference considering all the Washington Generals-type lineups the Nets concocted over the season’s final month.

Not that the losing was Porter’s fault. He registered a 47.4/38.5/85.3 shooting split with 7.2 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game (both season-ending marks were career highs) through the All-Star break. Through deft cutting and otherworldly shotmaking, he found ways to score against defenses who were able to focus solely on stopping him. On the other hand, he was considered one of the league’s worst defenders, on-ball and off-ball, and the fact that he acknowledged a letdown in performance after the All-Star disappointment wasn’t a great look.

Porter would have looked better, in my opinion, had he been traded to a team like Detroit at the deadline. As a complementary third or fourth offensive option, he won a ring in Denver. Think the Pistons could have used his gravity while they were losing four-of-five to blow their second-round series against Cleveland? They might rue that missed opportunity.

Porter, though, allegedly wants to be paid like the alpha he was last season. Maybe not quite the max extension peak of four years and $234 million, but likely somewhere north of the $45 million AAV neighborhood. Since the Nets as of this writing have held off using their full allotted cap space of about $11 million (center Moritz Wagner’s approximately $9.3 million free agent signing that fits into a midlevel exception remains pending), they can frontload some of the extension and then set up the remaining years on a declining scale—i.e. $49.5 million for this season, $47 million in 2027-28, and so on.

Is that in Brooklyn’s best long-term interest, though? I saw posts showing how the Nets are projected to sport the NBA’s most cap space after the 2026-27 season at around $70 million. Yeah, but that assumes they let Porter walk for nothing next summer. Porter’s cap hold, if he intends to re-sign, is over $42.6 million, per Spotrac.com.

The underlying problem, however, is that Porter, even though just 28 and more than three years removed from the most recent of his once chronic back issues, doesn’t fit in Brooklyn’s timeline. The Nets aren’t in a serious position to suddenly pivot with go-for-broke moves whereby Porter would slot into his most effective lesser role. Not this season or next offseason.

For those fans yearning for a 2018-19 reboot, the East back then was far weaker from top-to-near-bottom. The Nets were able to ride a rather misfit toys rotation to a 42-40 record. This incoming group is not only flawed, it pales in comparison to even the middling competitors in the East. The Wizards might still suck, but it would take a catastrophic deluge of injuries for them to finish below Brooklyn again.

And what comes after? We never know in this volatile league which superstar suddenly becomes available (Anthony Edwards is my wild guess to ask out of Minnesota), but it’s not like Brooklyn will have the cap space it did in the Summer of 2019 necessary for a second Clean Sweep.

Apples and oranges.

The reality always was that Porter has been way more valuable to the Nets than he is in the eyes of other clubs. Whether or not Marks actually put Porter on the market in February, the lack of an executed trade proved that no one came running to blow Brooklyn away with an offer, even when he was lighting up scoreboards.

That view should guide how the Nets proceed. If Porter is willing to accept less term, such as a two-year deal, perhaps with a player option, then I see nothing wrong with the team extending him early. Barring that, this is a case where I’d agree with Marks’ credo that patience is a virtue. With the East set to engage in a proverbial battle well above the Nets’ plane, maybe a team under duress due to injuries or one that sees Porter as a key missing piece for a late season and beyond run will call on Marks for a rental.

All the more reason to let this Porter situation play out for the remainder of the offseason. To paraphrase what old Pirates GM Branch Rickey, a Brooklyn legend, once said to Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner, the Nets can finish last with Porter, and they can finish last without him.

Now that the Summer Leagues have concluded, the usually entertaining NBA offseason may resume its course. Noteworthy player movement has been minimal over the last two weeks. Not only are several teams waiting on LeBron James’ next decision (or is it still “Decision”?) as to the next stop on his remarkable journey, so apparently is Commissioner Adam Silver, who wants certainty for his TV partners’ schedules.

The theory goes that once James’ situation gets settled, some of the other teams left out will pivot. Younger restricted free agents, such as Detroit center Jalen Duren and Denver forward Peyton Watson, will come to terms, most likely with their incumbent clubs. The same goes for grizzled veteran UFAs like James Harden and Draymond Green. DeMar DeRozan might be the most accomplished FA in the market who will find a new home, and it’s questionable whether he’ll find someone to pay him over the league minimum.

What this means for the Nets is unclear. They are currently not mentioned as potential landing spots for any of the above names. Once the Julius Randle trade became official on July 10, Brooklyn’s once ample salary cap space dwindled to at most a little above $11 million, according to Spiotrac.com, and that’s only because they’re holding off on the signing of free agent center Moritz Wagner, who is slated for an approximately $9.2 million cap hit.

Though the Nets could slot Wagner into an exception, they won’t have enough room to go big game hunting on their own. I don’t see a major sign-and-trade in their future either. Perhaps they could finagle their way into a blockbuster as a third team via consuming some of that cap space for a salary dump in exchange for a Draft asset.

The scenario gaining the most traction is the one that has General Manager Sean Marks negotiating an extension for forward Michael Porter Jr., who would otherwise have to play on an expiring contract and thus immediately be subject to boundless trade distractions. The Nets could frontload a new deal—teams can go over the cap to sign their own players and Brooklyn is nearly $58 million under the first apron—on something like a 4-year, $180 million offer.

Marks told reporters last week in Las Vegas that the organization isn’t rushing to the bank to pay Porter, but Marks and Porter’s agent Mark Bartelstein, who leaked that talks would begin in the late summer, could merely be playing leverage games. However, Marks typically doesn’t blink until he’s poked in the eye, and the urgency level as it stands is still relatively low. I expect him to remain patient when it comes to Porter, just in case something pops on other fronts.

Nets fans, though, have to hope something does. For this is not a team that is built to make a substantial leap from last season’s debacle. Oh, the games may be more competitive—the rights to Brooklyn’s 2027 first-round pick is subject to a swap with Houston, so any plan for a third consecutive season of tanking is off the table—because they’ll actually be trying to win. But where will that take them?

Las Vegas oddsmakers don’t think it will be very far. DraftKings has Brooklyn’s early over/under win total for 2026-27 at 22.5, just 2.5 more than last season’s ugly number Only Sacramento is projected to be worse, and I think that’s debatable based on paper.

Marks can’t possibly disagree, even if he’s high on rookie point guard Mikel Brown Jr. and the growth of the five sophomores from last year’s rookie class, particularly Egor Demin. It’s difficult to fathom a GM constructing a more porous starting five defensively than the hypothetical front line of Porter, Randle, and either Day’Ron Sharpe, Wagner, or Danny Wolf in the middle behind Demin and one of Brown or Nolan Traore. No perimeter stopper, no rim protection, etc.

In late-game situations, expect Randle to pound the rock, which wouldn’t be so terrible if this was 2020. Last season, the 31-year old shot 14-for-33 from the field, including 0-for-8 from deep, in what NBA.com defines as clutch situations (games within a five-point margin in the last five minutes) to go along with 14 assists to 15 turnovers on a very good Minnesota squad. I can’t recall a player with a reputation that combines such divergent traits of ball sharing and ball stopping.

Head Coach Jordi Fernandezs will be under stress this season if this is the team that takes the court. He’d want his club to play fast, but Randle isn’t known for his transitions. In either direction. Fernandez instructs his guards to get into opposing ballhandlers, but Nic Claxton is gone, along with any hope that the inevitable parade of blow-bys will be remedied by the help defense, an area where the 6-foot 10 Porter is notoriously deficient. The one stat that Fernandez probably wouldn’t have to take issue with is three-point volume. Three-point efficiency, unfortunately, would be another matter.

I’m always asked by fans. “What would you do?” As if that’s my job. Unfortunately, I don’t have insights into who is making calls on which players. I can play with trade machines to make suggestions, but the Randle acquisition all but killed S&T opportunities because the incoming team takes on the new first-year salary while the trading team’s cap space reduction is merely last season’s number. In other words, the Nets would need to send out something like $30 million in 2026-27 contracts to teams whose room would decline by amounts in the teens. It’s difficult to make the math work, even if other clubs got involved. Brooklyn would have to dump Terance Mann onto some team with a trade exception, and probably Noah Clowney too.

Here’s an example of one that does work, at least according to Spotrac.com:

Brooklyn: Trades for Watson, who signs a 4-year, $120 million contract, upgrades Chaney Johnson to a standard deal, and signs another minimum contract player

Denver gets Ben Saraf, Brooklyn’s 2027 first-round pick from the Mikal Bridges trade with New York and Memphis’ 2028 second-round pick, Orlando’s 2030 second round pick via New Orleans, and one of the Thunder’s seven overseas Draft stashes

New Orleans gets Clowney (using its biannual exception)

Oklahoma City gets Mann (using the Lu Dort trade exception) and two of Brooklyn’s second-round picks

Though the Thunder always seem to be down to add more picks and the Pelicans would get the still-young Clowney for a 2, there is no indication that Denver would be willing to part ways with Watson or that Marks has the same goo-goo eyes over him that Porter said has in a social media post. It’s silliness.

If not something in that neighborhood, though, then what’s next, Nets?

Early in Nets Summer League action, Egor Demin received a pass above the three-point line. After a pump fake got his man in the air, the 20-year old blew past him and finished around the basket.

It was notable for its rarity, if not novelty. A little less than half of Demin’s field goal attempts last season were catch-and-shoots, according to NBA.com’s tracking. He averaged about three drives per game, which was the fewest of all five Draftees among Brooklyn’s 2025 first-round haul. In five SL games between Sacramento and Las Vegas, he may have come close to matching the four dunks he accumulated in the 52 games he played as a rookie.

Even if Demin’s meaningless shooting stats (47% from the field, including 29% on three pointers) didn’t always back it up, the eye test verified the strides he has made from a year ago. He looked more fit, which likely gave him confidence to attack the rim with greater frequency. He will probably finish in the top 12 in scoring across all NBA SL events; Washington’s Will Riley, who played just two games, is the only sophomore drafted after Demin who is averaging more ppg. The Nets will close out their summer slate on Sunday with a tilt versus Oklahoma City, though I don’t see the point of Demin participating.

Some of the analysis, however, has gone a bit overboard. “Leap” is being bandied about too haphazardly from my perspective. With dynamic rookie point guard Mikel Brown Jr. aboard the Brooklyn ship, the duo has even drawn a nickname, “The Aura Bros.”

Good grief. Can we wait until at least Game 5 in October? I am aware that I don’t watch these games with rose-colored glasses, the consequence of 50 years of suffering through way too many embarrassments as a Nets fan. But the excessive Demin love throughout SL made me feel like I was watching a different channel. Yes, there were some positive takeaways, but the negatives seemed to be too readily glossed over.

On the plus side, Demin’s 6-foot 9 height was activated by Nets SL coach Dutch Gaitley, who sometimes set him up as the screener on pick-and-rolls. Off the catch, Demin made some nifty plays, both for himself and teammates. Many of them came off pocket passes--it weas helpful that his having a solid shooting foundation forced defenses to respect the pick-and-pop.

What I didn’t see enough of, on the other hand, was Demin as the pick-and-roll ballhandler. While some folks (me included) were concerned about Demin’s poor perimeter shooting numbers at BYU, those were dispelled early in his professional career, He should be fine. The main issue, though, was his relative lack of athleticism and inability to beat guys off the dribble. Coming into the league with such a frail frame, which he readily acknowledged, exacerbated the weakness.

Unlike Brown, Demin has not yet shown the ability to gain advantages when the ball is in his hands, get to his comfortable spots, and/or create space with his body to get off shots. Without that in his skillset, everything else he does well, like using his size to see over defenders to find open teammates, is limited.

In Demin’s last game on Thursday against Houston, which rostered a slew of older and uber physical players who were open about turning a basketball exhibition into a rugby match, he was figuratively stuck in place for much of it until he went off for a 17-point the fourth quarter with the Nets unable to get their deficit down to single digits. The storyline from that night, of course, was how Demin responded, as if he really did figure out how to minimize the physicality factor.

Demin’s defense on Thursday was equally disturbing, the three “stocks” be damned. He routinely acted like a turnstile, blown by on drives from future Rockets G leaguers, a continuation of a problematic trend from his rookie season where the early returns from data analytics experts had his blow-by frequency in the Luka Doncic and James Harden range. Thursday’s ESPN analyst Iman Shumpert, a former Net, criticized Demin’s guarding techniques, something that shouldn’t be taken lightly even in a setting that deserves to be quickly disregarded.

Demin, selected with the No. 8 overall pick, was the poster child for Nets General Manager Sean Marks’ drafting strategy. No one disputes Demin’s competitive fire or intelligence, the first things Marks typically mentions when asked for his evaluation priorities. Those traits are absolutely important when assessing an NBA player’s success probability. But so are athleticism and basketball skills, though if Demin can keep draining 3s at an acceptable rate like last season, it will only improve his potential for a higher trajectory.

To be clear, I’m not claiming that Demin is destined for Bustville. He certainly has the wherewithal to carve out a nice career as at least a contributor on a good team. I just don’t know how anyone can tell from the Nets’ Summer League outings if Demin’s outlook changed that much.

Remember, Demin was able to put up numbers as a rookie (while dealing with a plantar fasciitis condition that prematurely halted his season) because Brooklyn was tanking. Others, like 7-foot 1 center Khaman Maluach, who went to playoff-bound Phoenix at No. 10 overall and nearly averaged a 20/10 while going 8-for-20 on three pointers in four SL games, weren’t given that opportunity.

In other words, advancing to be able to produce against inferior competition isn’t quite the accomplishment some are making—I pointed out in a prior post that the Las Vegas Summer League MVP two years ago was Jalen Wilson, whom the Nets chose not to re-sign and is currently out of NBA work. It’s always quite another analysis to determine if SL stars can extrapolate their effectiveness to games that matter a heck of a lot more.

Given the paucity of high-end skill in the free agent market this offseason, the Devils’ signing of left wing Anthony Mantha to a 2-year, $9.5 million contract on Wednesday shouldn’t be judged too harshly.

Yes, the $4.75 million AAV consumed more than half of New Jersey’s available salary cap space for a player who, despite producing career highs in goals (33) and assists (31) by healthy margins in Pittsburgh last season, hasn’t exactly performed like an overachiever in his 11 NHL seasons following his first-round selection (No. 20 overall) in the 2013 Draft. Despite his 6-foot 5, 240-pound frame, Mantha generally shies away from the consistent physical play necessary in a middle six role—his 2.53 hits per 60 last season ranked 239^th among the league’s forwards who played at least 50 games, per NHL.com. Diminutive Devils wing Jesper Bratt took the body more often.

However, one could make a case that Mantha would fare well playing alongside Jack Hughes and Bratt on New Jersey’s top scoring line, even if Mantha’s shooting percentage is bound for a regression (his 14.7 goals above expected were the league’s third-most last season, according to moneypuck.com). Mantha excels at getting to the net front, even at 5-on-5. NaturalStatTrick.com had him with 65 high danger scoring chances in such situations, which ranked 87^th in the league last season, tied with San Jose star Macklin Celebrini. Considering how much difficulty the Devils had in finishing golden scoring opportunities, especially with the dynamic pair of Hughes and Bratt on the ice, Mantha might seem like a gift from above.

Mantha moves fairly well for a big man—NHL Edge tracking registered his speed in the top 75^th percentile for his position. That’s around the same range as Devils wing Timo Meier, who is being paid an AAV of $8.8 million and hasn’t topped 30 goals since 2021-22, his last full season in San Jose. Keeping up with the pace set by more electric linemates shouldn’t be the main problem with Mantha’s addition to this potential configuration.

If you’re worried about Mantha’s disappearing acts in the playoffs, how about the Devils getting there first? They’ve missed out on six of the last eight postseasons, including two of the last three. Mantha hasn’t lit the lamp and notched only seven assists, but his playoff career sample is only 20 games. If Mantha’s presence can allow New Jersey to better distribute their scoring across at least three lines, then I like their chances to break through the Eastern Conference’s logjam. That has to happen this season.

Of course, the open question is whether Mantha could help Hughes and Bratt with puck retrieval, in all zones. Such deficiencies led to multiple Devils coaches throwing the washed Ondrej Palat onto the top line. Palat’s defensive diligence and hard work along the walls only partially made up for his production degradation. Mantha’s on-ice advanced metrics, including expected goals for percentage, have typically been above water, but he’s been on some pretty solid defensive teams in his last six seasons. Parceling out credit to Mantha’s individual efforts such that he’d be an analytic no-brainer for the top line in New Jersey may be a stretch.

The Penguins didn’t really trust him. Mantha only spent about 70 of his nearly 1,000 minutes of 5-on-5 ice time last season tagging along with icon Sidney Crosby on their top line, per NST. In fact, most of Mantha’s shifts were with bottom six centers Tommy Novak and Ben Kindel.

If that same role is what new Devils General Manager Sunny Mehta envisions for Mantha in 2026-27, then this was an ill-advised move. The last thing this club needs is another Evgenii Dadonov type who floats around the ice without much expectation or accomplishment.

But getting back to the original premise, the price and term (without having to attach a no-trade clause—who would’ve thunk it?) aren’t so onerous as to preclude Mehta from a theoretical correcting of a mistake at the NHL trade deadline.

Give the Man(tha) a chance.

Track star speed is not a necessity to achieve NBA success. Luka Doncic and Nikola Jokic are merely two examples of superstars who thrive on deliberation.

From my perspective, though, the Nets have proliferated their roster with an overabundance of slowpokes. Among their five-player haul from the 2025 NBA Draft, only Nolan Traore could be categorized as having plus speed, and he has yet to prove he can play fast (and yes, I know he’s only 20).

Two players from the Nets’ 2026 Draft class continued that trend. Joshua Jefferson is said to share traits with Kyle Anderson, who has carved out a nice career via a “Slo-Mo” alter ego. Second-round pick Tyler Bilodeau is even more speed-challenged, though there are worse ways to utilize a No. 43 overall pick than by selecting a 46.4% three-point shooter on 4.5 attempts per game.

The above has made Mikel Brown Jr., whom Brooklyn chose with the No. 6 overall pick, stand out all the more during his appearances at the NBA Summer Leagues. Obviously, the results from these glorified pick-up outings need to be flushed upon each conclusion, but some overarching things can be gleaned by anyone who knows the game. One of them has been Brown’s ability to control pace—ANY pace. And that’s something that can potentially bring a new dimension to the Nets’ attack this season.

Egor Demin, the Nets No. 8 overall pick last year who is having an excellent summer (and should probably be shut down considering last year’s plantar fasciitis issues), is just not that type of player. Much will be written on Demin’s improved willingness to get into the paint and finish, but SL defenses aren’t indicative of what he will see in games that matter. Remember, former Net Jalen Wilson was the 2025 SL MVP, and he remains unsigned.

Brown, though, just moves differently. It goes beyond his speed with the ball in his hands in transition or when he’s turning a corner upon being confronted with a trap. It’s like when hockey writers refer to skaters’ “edge work” to describe how they can shift direction without losing the puck. Brown’s quickness going side-to-side or on his step-back move are more likely to translate into regular season effectiveness than how Demin has been accumulating points (so long as Brown continues to make shots at an efficient rate). The acceleration plus deceleration combination is better than having just one of them.

I will cop to underestimating Brown’s vision on the move in my pre-Draft analysis. Despite only recently meeting his new teammates, half of whom will be employed elsewhere in a week, Brown has often found ways to feed them in their best positions to score. Sure, his turnovers have exceeded what Nets Head Coach Jordi Fernandez would likely deem acceptable, but the good thing was that they mostly arose from poor decisions, like making the difficult pass instead of keeping it simple. Your typical rookie mistakes. Those are more correctable than, say, when Traore just couldn’t handle the ball against pressure without getting filched last year.

Brown has also been applying said quickness on the defensive end. He has active hands and has done well to keep opposing ballhandlers in front. That includes the times he was matched up one-on-one with Kings rookie Darius Acuff Jr. during the Nets’ 115-83 rout on Tuesday night in Las Vegas.

Acuff, my preferred choice for Brooklyn whom Sacramento selected one pick later, scored 26 points and shot 9-for-18 from the field, but I’d bet four or five of the makes plus a handful of his free throws came after switches that targeted Danny Wolf or Bilodeau, neither of whom stood a chance in those situations.

In one sequence that will resonate with Nets fans until the cold reality of the season sets in, Acuff took off towards the basket in transition only to have Brown come across and swipe it away (it was recorded as a blocked shot). Brown then picked up the loose ball in the corner and headed the other direction. A couple of crossovers with Acuff guarding him got Brown to the foul line, where he stepped back and rose up for a 17-foot mid-range jumper that hit nothing but net.

It was absolutely meaningless, but when so little has gone well in Brooklyn since the end of the superstar era, you reach for anything resembling hope.

Brown also registered two steals for a second straight game, both times victimizing Kings sophomore Nique Clifford. The first, when Brown used his feet to beat Clifford to a spot and ripped the ball away, was most impressive. Those two plays accounted for four of Brooklyn’s 30 fast break points.

The Nets were 28^th in the league in pace last season, as measured by NBA.com. Fernandez often mentioned how he wanted his club to get out and run, but the truth was that it didn’t have the horses. Being slow, not to mention relatively meek physically, hampered its ability to play complementary basketball.

For the most part, that’s not going to change this season, barring surprise transactions in the final weeks of the offseason. A starting front line consisting of Day’Ron Sharpe, Julius Randle, and Michael Porter Jr. is tailor made for a walk-it-up game plan that will simultaneously struggle on the defensive end. Demin’s long strides allow him to pick up speed after a running start, but he’s not beating defenders off the dribble unless they fall for a pump fake upon a closeout.

Brown, however, has the tools to change the Nets’ mojo—if he can stay healthy. A bad back limited the 20-year-old to 21 games in his sole season at Louisville. Like Allen Iverson, whom Brown mentioned to the New York Post’s Steve Serby as one of the “old-time” players he studied, he falls a lot. That risk was what elevated Acuff above him in my pre-Draft rankings.

It will take years before we learn whether the Nets’ bet on Brown paid off. However, going into the Draft, the Nets had a real need for speed, and that’s something that can’t be faked, even in a contrived setting like the NBA Summer League.

The Nets rolled out two of their rookies and some of their returning sophomores for the first of their two-prong Summer League slate in Sacramento this weekend. Brooklyn took two of the three games-in-three-days event, but the results were beside the point.

Most Nets fans merely wanted to catch a glimpse of their last two lottery selections, Egor Demin (No. 8 overall in the 2025 NBA Draft) and Mikel Brown Jr. (No. 6 overall in 2026), on the court at the same time. They represent Brooklyn’s future. At this moment.

Though it would have been more dramatic if Brown, who hadn’t played a real game in over four months due to a back injury, was allowed to be matched up in Saturday’s opener versus Sacramento with the player, Darius Acuff Jr., Brooklyn passed up on Draft Day, the fans’ wishes were fulfilled during Monday night’s 100-79 victory over the split squad Warriors Blue Team.

Since SL action bears little resemblance to what we’ll see during the regular season, it’s always foolish to draw concrete conclusions from these exhibitions. Still, here’s a few of my instant reactions, or perhaps overreactions:

What I liked:

1) Brown has skills. My focus in these games is on how certain players move. Can they gain advantages on their own? Can they read the court? Brown was absolutely impressive. Ignore the 4-for-11 make-or-miss line. His shot mechanics looked fine. But it was his quickness, handle, vision, and the on-the-money delivery of passes to shooters he must have just met that had to have wowed Head Coach Jordi Fernandez in the stands. Like Acuff, the player with whom he’ll always be compared, Brown has work to do to learn team defense. However, Brown’s explosiveness and playmaking make him a good fit in Brooklyn, even if he wasn’t as efficient a scorer in college. Pray that he can stay healthy—he falls a ton on forays to the basket.

2) Demin’s defensive rebounding diligence. Many analysts will note the few instances where he drove into the paint and finished, which was a clear weakness during his rookie season. However, let’s wait until we see him do that against real competition. I was more intrigued by how often he used his growing frame (he’s now listed at 6-foot 9 and 212 pounds) to crash the defensive glass to snatch 15 rebounds during his two games. He averaged four defensive boards per 36 minutes last season. Oh, I’ll add one more thing If you want an offensive nugget: I liked the Demin as screener wrinkle employed by Nets SL coach Dutch Gaitley. Demin would roll into the pocket, where his options upon receipt of the ball included shooting it over a smaller switched defender or finding an open teammate in the corner in the event the opposing defense collapsed into the paint. A neat way to leverage Demin’s size and vision.

3) Chaney Johnson battles. At 6-foot 7 and 240 pounds, he has no business being pigeonholed as an NBA 5. Yet that’s what the Nets have been doing to him since they started giving him minutes in March. When it turned out Johnson was too effective for the tank, Brooklyn benched him down the stretch. With sophomore Danny Wolf unavailable to participate in Sacramento due to a back injury, it again fell on Johnson to bang with the bigger bodies in the paint. I still have no idea what his role on the Nets will be for this coming season—he’s on a two-way contract—but whenever and wherever he gets opportunities, he does the little things, like setting screens, boxing out, and generally hustles. Just 24, he can make some shots, but probably not at the rate that you’d like out of a forward.

4) Tyler Bilodeau’s stroke. This one’s obvious—Brooklyn’s second round pick (No. 43 overall) ranked 16^th among the qualified Division I players in three-point field goal percentage as a senior at UCLA last season at 46.4%. He can’t guard a traffic cone and it remains to be seen how quickly he can get that shot off when encountering NBA regular season speed, but three-point shooting is such an essential skill in the modern era that you can’t dismiss a 6-for-9 outing, even against a nonentity like Monday’s Warriors.

What I didn’t like:

1) Drake Powell in slow motion. I am willing to flush the 1-for-17 from the floor, including 0-for-9 on three pointers, in the two games of zero consequence. The concerning aspect was how Powell looked like the proverbial vinyl record on the wrong RPM speed. The few times he beat the amateurs guarding him 1-on-1, he was stripped, mainly due to a lack of awareness. Defensively, he should have made much more of an impact using his athleticism to get hands on balls. Powell is only seven months older than Brown, so it’s still early in the development curve. However, with the guard glut in Brooklyn, I hope he has a better showing at the Las Vegas Tournament or else he might need some lengthy stays at G League Long Island just to get regular season game reps.

2) Getting pushed around. It’s not all that difficult to post solid defensive metrics in Summer League action. The players are all young and/or rusty, leading to a plethora of bricks on even the most wide-open looks. If you give effort on your rotations to force extra passes, you will likely benefit from a better than average share of opponent misses. The Nets did that very well in Sacramento, but by no means will that automatically translate into games that matter. Based on what we know to date about the roster, the Nets will be undersized on most nights in the regular season. Bleeding offensive rebounds could very well be a recurring issue, even with the pending trade for the more physical Julius Randle and the free agent signing of Moritz Wagner. In addition, Brooklyn’s guards, particularly Demin and Ben Saraf, were still susceptible to targeting. I cringed at how easily both were moved back when ballhandlers leaned into them to create shooting space. One offseason in the gym appeared, at first glance, insufficient. The Keon Ellis acquisition may help in this area, but I don’t think it will be enough for this group to avoid being a bottom-five defensive team in the league this season.

Keep an eye on:

1) The other Brown. Now that the Nets have finished tanking, or at least they have promised to stop going out of their way to lose games, it will be harder for the Tyrese Martin types to make the team. Dion Brown, whom Brooklyn reportedly signed to an Exhibit 10 deal, is a real longshot after going undrafted at 23. I saw a little Jalen Wilson in him in Sacramento except Brown is three inches shorter and a guard. They both make the same type of hustle and off schedule plays that enabled Wilson to survive the last three seasons in Brooklyn following his second-round selection. Brown is just one of those guys who knows how to play. He can read defenses and make professional passes without turning balls over. He’s not the strongest defender, but he would have made a theoretical All-Floorburn Team. I’d like to see Brown be more efficient shooting the rock in Las Vegas; I’m not saying he’ll be in Brooklyn this season if he can, but he’d be an interesting guy to watch develop on Long Island.

FIFA is a disgrace.

Par for the sport, I’m afraid.

While the United States prepared for Monday night’s World Cup Round of 16 contest versus Belgium in Seattle, the team received extraordinary news on Sunday that leading goal scorer Folarin Balogun’s supposedly automatic one-match suspension due to a red card in the preceding contest against Bosnia-Herzegovina was in itself “suspended” by the sport’s governing body for one year. That the ruling followed a personal plea from President Donald Trump to FIFA head honcho Gianni Infantino on the striker’s behalf made it appear even more egregious.

Infantino, in case you forgot, previously bestowed a made-up peace prize to flatter the narcissist in charge. That instance of corruption, however common, had no impact on the games. This Balogun reversal, after all, was against the rules of play, or so claimed the host of howlers.

Um, what rules? Have you been watching?

All sports involve some level of officiating control over the outcome. But since soccer games are so low scoring, the referees’ subjectivity logically matters more. I’ve seen more soccer match fixing stories than the rest of the sporting world combined.

Even when matches are on the level, you could be a soccer neophyte or a lifetime fanatic and still be aghast over why many fouls were whistled or went uncalled, with reason to wonder if the ref was bribed. For instance, the shenanigans in the box on nearly every cross can border on assault, at least worthy of a penalty kick. If only the Jets linebackers could tackle that well. Except most soccer refs are loathe to award such a high percentage scoring chance to one team when so few are generated in normal play.

Meanwhile, players on all sides spend a disturbing amount of time writhing on the pitch in agony after flops that would make former NBA star Chris Paul cringe. Clearly, many are genuinely hurt—and fouling on purpose (without intent to injure) is considered sound strategy to halt an opponent’s counterattack--but it always seems remarkable to me how many others who acted like they were shot in the leg quickly jumped back into the fray without so much as a limp. Like any Shakespearean actor, the play’s the thing.

And speaking of time, soccer is the only sport where the scoreboard clock is meaningless. The referee keeps the official count, and he “estimates” how much “stoppage time” needs to be added to the end of each half due to various interruptions in play such as injuries, substitutions, and goal celebrations. And then he alone decides when to blow the whistle to end matters. “Eh, give it a few more minutes,” they can say. What kind of system is that to determine a best-on-best global competition? If you thought the last two minutes of a basketball game can take an eternity, at least everyone knows it’s over when the clock hits 0:00. Leading up to the conclusion of Sunday night’s thrilling Round of 16 match, Mexico had several “last chances” to tie England after the designated 11 minutes of stoppage time ran out.

The call on the original Balogun foul was, from my perspective, one that can be seen two dozen times in a given match. He was contesting a pass from teammate Tyler Adams with a B-H defender who bodied Balogun to the side. During the battle, Balogun’s foot raked the back of the defender’s leg and came down on his ankle. Yes, it was reckless and deserving of a yellow card. But to conclude, after replay, that this was beyond the usual scope of the ordinary course of action was preposterous. If that was the standard for an ejection with no substitute, more games would see 9-on-8s by the 80^th minute.

I would agree that reversing the ruling in a case where recourse was expressly prohibited is unfair to Belgium. The irony that this President, who attempted to end birthright citizenship with an authoritarian decree in spite of the plain language in the Constitution, stood up for a player who is only eligible for Team USA because his mother, a London resident, was deemed too far along in her pregnancy to fly home and instead gave birth in Brooklyn, is worthy of the utmost derision.

And then FIFA giving in, that had to be unprecedented, right?

Of course not. A Brazil player was granted a reprieve for the 1962 World Cup Final under similar circumstances, including political pressure. Others who were red carded in qualifying matches, like Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo in November, have received deferred suspensions for the World Cup. Did Ronaldo’s icon status have anything to do with it? Nah.

Unfortunately, soccer controversies, from the Diego Maradona “Hand of God” to all the imaginary offsides that disallowed goals before the advent of VAR, are so pervasive that the sport is lucky that memes are only a recent invention. The Soviet Union linesman who erroneously ruled that the 1966 World Cup Final game winner by England against West Germany in extra time crossed the goal line gave his reasoning in a subsequent interview: “Stalingrad,” he reportedly said. Hey, at least this controversy happened before the match started.

And even with Balogun available, the odds still call Monday a 50/50 event. Belgium got in their PR shots at the unseemliness, now they should get over it. They’re a top 10 team in the world. From my view of how this sport functions, the only clouds over any Team USA victory would be from the recent nasty weather.

And, if the U.S. loses, I’m certain there will be folks, particularly from inside the White House, who will claim that it was rigged.

For those waiting on Nets General Manager Sean Marks to make more than a ripple at the start of the new league year to accelerate the rebuild, the wait will have to continue, even as much of the Eastern Conference has been remade in a span of a week.

For Nets fans fantasizing that the coming season can emulate the 2018-19 experience when a gang of misfits posted a winning record following two of the worst seasons in franchise history, it will remain a pipe dream until news breaks that matches what has transpired in Miami, Philadelphia, and Toronto, not to mention the improvements expected out of a healthy Indiana squad and many of the other teams who have been incentivized to forsake tanking due to new league rules. Oh, and the Knicks will reign as defending NBA Champions until someone knocks them off.

With all the stars transversing around the league in the offseason’s opening salvos, Brooklyn has made one major move that sacrificed defense (Nic Claxton) for offense (Julius Randle). As I noted in my analysis of the trade (Breaking Down Randle Trade To Nets - by Steve Lichtenstein), I think the Nets will come out ahead with the swap to get a declining offensive creator in exchange for a plateaued player who I deemed as average-to-below-average in my rankings of starting NBA centers. A little ahead.

Marks’ subsequent acquisitions barely moved the needle at all. Center Moritz Wagner and guard Keon Ellis, both backups, reportedly agreed to sign similar free agent deals on Tuesday, with Wagner inking for $19 million to Ellis’ $18 million over the next two seasons, with both contracts containing a rather unique twist that allows for each side to opt into Year 2 (neither side can directly opt out).

The Nets were in dire need of obtaining a true center after dumping Claxton and the market for 5s was drying up fast. The 6-foot 11, 245-pound Wagner offers neither the rim protection to replace Claxton (Wagner’s career high in blocks per 36 minutes is 1.0 as a rookie with the Lakers and opponents shot 77% inside the restricted area with him as the nearest defender last season, per NBA.com) nor is he a strong enough floor spacing presence (31.4% from three-point ranges last season) to fully open up the paint for Randle, Michael Porter Jr. and rookie Mikel Brown Jr. to be at their most effective.

Wagner, 29, has also been injury prone, suiting up for 36 and 30 games in the last two seasons, respectively, mostly due to a torn ACL he suffered in December 2024. He did play 80 games during the prior season, but had only one other year in the previous five where he topped 57 games.

Like Randle, Wagner will bring much-needed physicality to Brooklyn’s soft identity. The Nets drew a grand total of 15 charges as a team last season, a number bested by five individuals around the league, per NBA.com. In Wagner’s last healthy season, he took 24 charges, the third-most in the league. I should also note that although he doesn’t take a ton of them, his corner 3 percentage has typically been around 35%, a satisfactory level.

So while I can understand how some might view the Nets as a more competent NBA squad with the Wagner addition—and the market likely dictated the overpay for the limited skillset as Day’Ron Sharpe’s backup—I found the Ellis signing almost unfathomable.

Who exactly was Marks bidding against? If Ellis was such a 3-and-D stud as some in Nets media are hyping, why did he barely get off the bench outside of garbage time during Cleveland’s run to the Eastern Conference Finals, even while the Cavs were getting their butts kicked during New York’s sweep? Isn’t Cleveland Head Coach Kenny Atkinson supposed to be a fervent devotee in the cult of analytics? Something is amiss if a player with a 40.7% career three-point rate who is regarded as a hound dog as a perimeter defender struggled to get minutes.

The book on Ellis is that he isn’t all that great as a defender of wings. That can be problematic on a team like the Nets that switches so often. NBA.com’s tracking of field goal percentage allowed over the shooters he’s guarding’s expected rates showed he has been relatively neutral over the last three seasons. In other words, he hasn’t consistently been in lockdown mode.

Ellis was 20^th in the league in steals per 36 minutes and 11^th in deflections per 36 minutes (50 games played minimum) last season. Want to know who was ranked higher in both categories? Ziaire Williams, the player Ellis ostensibly replaced on Brooklyn’s roster. Except Williams had a $6.25 million team option for 2026-27; Ellis is slated to count approximately $8.78 million on the Nets’ cap sheet.

The theory goes that Ellis had an advocate in Nets HC Jordi Fernandez, who was an assistant in Sacramento in 2022 when the Kings signed Ellis to a two-way deal after going undrafted. Fernandez has always been vociferous in urging his players to get into opposing ballhandlers’ grills, with Williams sometimes incurring his wrath for inconsistent efforts. That Ellis can also knock down three-point shots at a plus rate was a bonus.

However, nearly 85% of his made field goals over the last three seasons were assisted. He’s not much of a creator for himself or others—he averaged 1.8 assists per 36 minutes over his time in Sacramento and Cleveland last season.

Assuming Ellis opts in for a second season in Brooklyn, the Nets are setting themselves up to basically tell Drake Powell, their 20-year old No. 22 overall pick in the 2025 Draft, to prepare for some stints at G League Long Island. They have a glut of players at Powell’s position, and though he still might not be ready physically and mentally to handle a full load in the big league, such treatment could easily become a mismanagement of the asset.

Unless, of course, Marks has some consolidating transactions up his sleeve once the Randle trade becomes official on July 6. Some experts have calculated that the Nets could conceivably have up to about $25 million in cap space to jump back into the fray.

Simply using the space to extend Porter would leave the team well short of the goods needed to compete for a play-in slot in the refurbished East. The Nets were always going to be better than last season’s 20-62 debacle by merely playing hard to win games instead of tanking. With their moves to date, I would guess the Las Vegas over/under for 2026-27 would be set somewhere near 25.

Marks has the wherewithal in terms of cap space and Draft capital to ramp that number up to something more respectable. To quote Judge Smails from the classic film “Caddyshack”, “We’re waiting!”

Like any new caretaker, Devils General Manager Sunny Mehta’s first order of business appears to be discarding the mistakes of the past.

A couple of days after dealing former No. 2 overall pick Simon Nemec to Calgary, New Jersey announced another course correction on Tuesday with the trade of underachieving goalie Jacob Markstrom to Florida. More important than the return of former Devil Jesper Boqvist, clutch performer Evan Rodrigues, and minor leaguer Ben Steeves, Mehta was able to shed the full value of Markstrom’s two-year, $12 million contract extension that prior GM Tom Fitzgerald negotiated last November. The Devils, who also sent AHL Utica’s leading goal scorer Angus Crookshank to the Panthers, will save approximately $1.45 million on the 2026-27 salary cap.

The Devils may need every penny in order to move forward with Mehta’s plan to finally elevate a franchise that has one playoff series victory in 14 years into the sustainable contender class. It was helpful that the team got promising wing Arseny Gritsyuk to sign a 3-year extension at a reasonable $3.25 million AAV in advance of restricted free agency. Fitzgerald often let such negotiations linger into distraction territory, sometimes into training camp. (Note: Though Gritsyuk was a rookie last season, he was a 2019 Ray Shero fifth-round find, not Fitzgerald’s.)

Per PuckPedia.com, New Jersey has $9,727,500 in cap space with no other high-priority free agents to re-sign, unless you count minor league goalie Nico Daws, an RFA who for the moment has been promoted to Goalie 2. Captain Nico Hischier’s massive extension, which is reportedly close to the finish line, wouldn’t take effect until the following season.

Since I think it’s doubtful that Mehta will go into the season with a tandem of 35-year-old Jake Allen and the inexperienced Daws in net, the Markstrom clean-up has to be seen as merely an opening salvo. What, then, is next? Some believe Dawson Mercer, another of Fitzgerald’s first-round Draft disappointments, though not nearly on the same level as Nemec, Alexander Holtz, or Chase Stillman, will be pawned off in a trade—he’s in the final year of his $4 million AAV contract. Perhaps for a goalie? ESPN analyst Steve Weeks got hockey folks’ attention on Tuesday with his tweet suggesting that Winnipeg’s Connor Hellebuyck, a teammate of Team USA Olympic hero Jack Hughes, could be on the move, but Buffalo is said to have been doing the heaviest lifting to put together the necessary package.

It is also doubtful that Mehta would be in favor of taking on the 33-year-old Hellebuyck’s $8.5 million AAV cap hits for the next five seasons, though his former bosses in Florida did break the bank to give Sergei Bobrovsky a position-setting $10 million AAV for seven years back in 2019. And then they won two Stanley Cups. By the way, Bobrovsky may be an unrestricted free agent on Wednesday, but he’s coming off a terrible campaign, posting a minus-23.41 goals saved above average, the NHL’s second-worst number, per NaturalStatTrick.com. No more Markstrom’s, please.

Looking at the big picture, the Devils may view Boston University’s rising junior Mikhail Yegorov, a 2024 second-round pick, as the near future, even if last season was deemed disappointing. Yegorov theoretically could be signed to his entry-level contract once the BU season is completed, typically in time for the NHL playoffs. That would seem to negate the need for Mehta to commit long term to anyone not named Hellebuyck. Mehta, then, may be in the market for more of a stopgap who wouldn’t cost as much, like Stuart Skinner.

If only goalie was New Jersey’s sole area of concern. I think the team’s bottom six will be helped by Rodrigues and Boqvist, but they’re still missing the gamebreaker on the wing that Timo Meier was supposed to be. Mehta would be wise to save his cap space (and Draft pick assets) for big game hunting, whenever one becomes available.

For it’s one thing to clean house; it’s quite another to restock the furniture with quality goods.

Devils fans understood that new General Manager Sunny Mehta was likely to operate differently from his predecessors. His multidimensional background where he trained in the disparate arts of music, poker, and financial derivatives before turning his attention to hockey allows him to make decisions from angles not necessarily in confluence with others in NHL suites.

Such was the case with Mehta’s first NHL Draft pick while in charge of the stagnant organization he inherited in New Jersey. He wasn’t going to be blinded by size like Tom Fitzgerald had been of late, nor was he going to abide by the consensus provided by the many mocksters (like me) who aren’t accountable for their misses.

The Devils selected Swedish center Alexander Command with the No. 12 overall pick on Friday night, setting off a debate among fans who considered him a reach. Command himself seemed a bit surprised by New Jersey’s show of faith in him during his ESPN interview.

Mehta entered the conversation as a potential lead executive after lobbying for Jesper Bratt, a complete unknown while toiling in the second Swedish league, while acting as the Devils’ Director of Hockey Analytics in advance of the 2016 Draft. Bratt was tabbed in Round 6 and has since tallied more points than all but four other players in that class.

Command, however, is in no way comparable to Bratt, whose elite edge work then was so evident that it made the Devils’ scouting staff ignore his lack of size and relatively miniscule point totals. From all scouting reports, Command seems like the proverbial jack of all trades, master of none. The high floor, low ceiling pick. He’s coming off a sound 2025-26 campaign (17 goals and 27 assists in 30 games, albeit in Swedish juniors) and produced at a point-per-game clip in 28 games for Sweden’s U18 teams in international competitions. He then went pointless in six games after jumping to the country’s top level.

Command did earn universal high grades from scouts for his 200-foot game. He reportedly doesn’t shy away from the small-ice, physical battles that are ubiquitous throughout an NHL grind. One report had him with a 58% win rate in the faceoff dots last season.

The question, though, is whether he can eventually provide enough offensive firepower to warrant middle six minutes. Everything about him skill-wise—skating, shooting, playmaking—is rated as just fine, but not exceptional…

yet. At 18, he can certainly grow his game as well as his body, measured at 6-foot 1 and 187 pounds at the NHL Combine earlier this month. It will obviously take years before Command, like all but perhaps a few of his Draft classmates, is ready for NHL action, so let’s not rush to judgement.

In the meantime, Mehta has more pressing matters to address this offseason to right a wayward ship that has one playoff series victory in 14 years. He has already traded away a Fitzgerald mistake, former 2022 No. 2 overall pick Simon Nemec, to Calgary, obtaining two top-ten protected first-round picks, a second rounder, and minor league defenseman Etienne Morin for the pending restricted free agent defenseman and useless wing Maxim Tsyplakov. Much more work is needed to unravel a salary cap stranglehold caused by Fitzgerald’s overuse of no-trade/no-move clauses in contracts and to solve the franchise’s perennial goaltending woes.

Command is simply just the first step to restock a prospect pool that Fitzgerald diminished in his failed efforts to get New Jersey over the hump. The Devils will likely include him in their pre-training camp activities, starting with next week’s Development Camp, which will give fans a quick look at what Mehta settled on for his first major acquisition.

A recurring theme for much of Sean Marks’ decade-long reign as General Manager has been the Nets getting outmatched at the center position.

To be fair, Nic Claxton put up a decent fight over his seven seasons in Brooklyn before he was dealt to Chicago in the reported multi-team trade that will bring Julius Randle back to New York City earlier this week. Unfortunately, Claxton was never better than your average NBA 5—his inability to space the floor and penchant for roaming on defense routinely put the Nets at disadvantages on both ends. Even with Claxton showing growth as a playmaker and a marginal improvement in his free throw rate last season, the Nets drowned when he was on the court, according to NBA.com’s advanced metrics. His minus-12.9 net rating ranked dead last among the league’s 34 centers with at least 50 games and 20 minutes per game played. Kings rookie Maxime Raynaud was the only other big man with a double-digit negative rating at minus-10.9. Claxton’s defensive rebounding percentage (16.7%) ranked 25^th, a sad production rate on a team where he wasn’t exactly competing for boards with brutish teammates.

Hence, the subtraction of the Nets’ longest-tenured player wouldn’t necessarily have to set back the franchise’s rebuild from rubble. Of course, that would require Marks to be proactive in replacing him when the new league year opens for business next week.

For if Marks’ plan is to go forward with Day’Ron Sharpe and Danny Wolf as his club’s centers, with Randle and fourth-year pro Noah Clowney available in “small-ball” lineups (I use that term loosely because, from my perspective, this team has so often been relatively small in relation to their opponents since Brook Lopez was traded in 2017), then fans should be prepared for more disappointment despite the impending removal of incentives for excessive losing.

Sharpe has carved out a nice career as a backup big—few players provide as much gusto getting after it on the offensive glass. He typically gives his club juice, which partially explains why he has led Brooklyn in net rating in each of the last three seasons (minimum 25 games played). At 24, his development curve hasn’t reached its apex. If the Nets don’t exercise his $6.25 million player option by Sunday’s deadline so as to maximize salary cap space for potential additions, a fair extension is warranted.

But I don’t see Sharpe as a legitimate NBA starter. Like Claxton, he doesn’t need to be guarded above the mid-paint areas. And though Sharpe handles the ball fairly well for his position, he isn’t athletic enough to beat guys off the dribble. He also offers less rim protection and somehow his offensive rebounding prowess doesn’t carry over to the other end. The Nets’ have won just three of their last 13 games he started over the last four seasons after going 4-4 when Sharpe was forced into action as a rookie playing with some combination of Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden, per basketball-reference.com.

As for Wolf, by my count, all but 128 of his 1,187 minutes as a rookie last season came alongside either Claxton or Sharpe, according to NBA.com. I found that pretty strange considering how the Nets managed the campaign, with extra attention and opportunities given to their five-man Draft class. Why not allow Wolf to take reps as a 5 when results were secondary to development?

Is this what Marks has envisioned for a 6-foot 11, 250-pound player? It’s fine utilizing Wolf’s tools-y ballhandling and shooting abilities everywhere on offense, but positions are mostly about defense, who the player can guard. Perhaps the organization is wary of making Wolf the fulcrum because he lacks the athleticism for both pick-and-roll coverages and rim protection. But then again, Wolf often looked like a fish out of water as a forward, despite good efforts when forced to switch and rotate out to the three-point line.

No, the Nets have to make finding a starting center a priority this offseason. The Draft provided no help—even if they managed to put some of their 20-odd second round picks to good use by vaulting Boston in order to select Houston’s Chris Cenac Jr. in the late 20s as I hoped, it’s not like Cenac, a lean 19-year-old, would have come in NBA ready.

The ideal addition for Brooklyn this offseason combines the traditional roles of defense/rebounding with three-point shooting respect. The Knicks didn’t get to a Championship level until Karl-Anthony Towns evolved from a one-dimensional player by improving his defense without fouling so much.

Of course, such All-Stars are rarely available. The 2026 free agent class consists of mostly older, flawed players, with some damaged goods (Kristaps Porzingis) mixed in. Many of them (Mitchell Robinson, Deandre Ayton) would likely prefer programs closer to competing for a title than Brooklyn, which is almost everywhere else. Overpaying for a restricted free agent like Detroit’s Jalen Duren or Utah’s Walker Kessler doesn’t make financial sense—the only way they’d get here anyway is if the incumbent team matches and trades them, which would hard cap Brooklyn at the first apron.

Here are two options for Brooklyn, which can get up to about $37 million in cap space if needed:

1) Trade for Myles Turner

Yeah, I keep coming back to a deteriorating player, but there are so few centers who offer the requisite two-way contributions. One would think that after the Giannis Antetokounmpo trade, the Bucks are looking to transition to a younger and more affordable team. They might wish to get off the approximately $83.5 million owed over the next three years, assuming Turner exercises his $29.1 million age-32 player option at the end. That’s a pretty bad contract for the Nets to take on, which means the consideration price should be declining akin to his production. I looked at what the Bucks might get in some purely speculative content—yeesh. A bunch of 2s and a young player or two might be enough to do the trick for Brooklyn. Remember, Randle can’t be his best self offensively if the Nets continue to station a non-shooter around the basket. And I think Turner is still enough of a deterrent at the rim to help with all the blow-bys Brooklyn’s lousy perimeter defenders allow.

2) Sign Sandro Mamukelashvili

If your model is the no-defense 1980s Denver Nuggets, why not go all in? Mamukelashvili is expected to decline his Toronto player option by Monday’s deadline, so he’ll be free to sign anywhere. The Nets can offer him a four-year deal above the nontaxpayer midlevel exception with their cap space. Again, he’ll give you nearly zero resistance and physicality as he’s undersized at 6-foot 9 and 240 pounds, but he’d come tailor-made for Head Coach Jordi Fernandez’s offensive schemes—he shot nearly 39% on 3.7 three-point attempts per game last season and he can make next level passes out of the high post. At 27, this Seton Hall alum’s contract shouldn’t age all that poorly. Even if the plan is to start Sharpe, Mamukelashvili would give Brooklyn a better change of pace than Wolf.

If the Nets’ rebuild isn’t fully erect in a few years, it won’t be because of a lack of opportunities.

Brooklyn brought its first-round Draft count to seven over the last two years with a pair of selections on Tuesday night inside their Barclays Center home. At No. 6 overall, the team’s highest slot since 2010, the Nets tabbed Louisville’s Mikel Brown Jr. Later in the evening, they used the pick swap from Monday’s trade with Minnesota to take Iowa State’s Joshua Jefferson at No. 28 overall.

Nets fans have endured two seasons of hell in the belief that the Draft, under the auspices of General Manager Sean Marks, would lead them to salvation. Though the Lottery gods didn’t seem to approve—Brooklyn’s slot dropped both times—fans understood that diamonds could be unearthed anywhere with the right evaluation and player development. However, with Houston owning swap rights to the Nets’ 2027 pick, the last of the tokens Brooklyn owes from the 2021 James Harden blockbuster, Tuesday night’s decisions were enormously consequential to whatever Marks is cooking for the resurrection.

Brown will now hold the key to the plan’s ultimate outcome. He will be Marks’ hand-picked floor leader. An athletic player with deep range, Brown’s development will have to focus on decision-making and efficiency. Because those traits were concerning in college.

That, and the back woes that hounded Brown during the season, was why I had advocated heavily for the Nets to instead choose Arkansas point guard Darius Acuff Jr., the best scorer on the board who went next to Sacramento.

Marks, though, had always seemed enamored with Brown, reportedly meeting with him three times, including a visit to his family’s home in Florida. The workout must have gone well too. For his part, Brown claimed he is 100% healthy. However, I reiterate that if the Nets suddenly hold him out of all Summer League games as “a precaution”, be scared. Marks has shown in the past that he isn’t afraid of taking injury risks, but he did bet wrong on his last swing on a questionable first rounder, Dariq Whitehead in 2023.

I can see how Brown’s highlight reel sprinkled with spectacular plays could sway many fans who support the pick. He can play fast and above the rim. When he gets hot, look out, like during a five-game stretch in February that included a 45-point barrage against NC State.

Most footage, though, didn’t show the misses. His final college numbers—a 41/34.4/84.4 shooting split with 4.7 assists and 3.1 turnovers per game, were rather pedestrian for a high lottery pick. Brown had some terrible games when Louisville faced its few tough opponents (the ACC had a down year). The back injury that forced him to prematurely end his season after 21 games obviously should be taken into consideration, but the book on him going back to high school also noted his penchant for poor shot selection.

Many Draft experts mentioned that Brown has “ideal size” for a guard, but he measured approximately 1.5 inches taller than Acuff with a 0.5 inch longer wingspan at the NBA Combine. Is that so monumental a difference? Acuff’s defensive video was pretty ghastly, but the view on Brown’s upside on that end is mostly projection, not results based. Brown’s stocks last season: 1.3; Acuff: 1.1. The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie was pretty disparaging during his film breakdown of Brown on that end, though not as much as with Acuff.

The waiting and the analysis, though, are done. Brown is Marks’—and Nets’ fans--ride-or-die. He will have the ball in his hand a ton as a 20-year old rookie because he’s probably already better at the position than the three point guards Marks selected in his uninspiring Draft haul a year ago. Expect that ride to be a bumpy one.

From my perspective, I’ll die on the hill that the Nets would have been better served going with the equally dynamic but way more efficient Acuff. But I’m willing to concede that the proof might not emerge for perhaps a decade.

_________________________________________________________________________

I thought Brooklyn’s process with its second first rounder also resulted in a missed opportunity. The Nets had brought in Chris Cenac Jr. for a workout in advance of the Draft. The Houston big man measured around 6-foot 11 and 240 pounds with a 7-foot 5 wingspan at the NBA Combine and converted on a third of his 2.4 three-point attempts per game as a 19-year old for a team that went to the 2026 Sweet 16. The ability to act as a floor spacer, along with top-notch athleticism and mobility, made him an ideal candidate to help with Brooklyn’s size problem.

All Marks had to do was sweeten Denver’s pot to move up two slots to cement the pick. The Nuggets, who were looking to move out of the first round to avoid the guaranteed first-year salary on their cap, partnered with San Antonio for a swap of 26-for-35 in exchange for two second-round picks. The Spurs preferred UConn’s Tarris Reed Jr. anyway.

Unfortunately, Boston swooped in to swipe Cenac off the board at No. 27 while Marks was asleep at the wheel. On the bright side, the Nets still have a half a gazillion 2s to play with over the next seven years. To do what if not that, I don’t know.

With Cenac gone, Marks pivoted to Jefferson, who is eight months OLDER than Noah Clowney, a three-year NBA veteran.

I’m not suggesting that Jefferson was a reach—he had a fine college career and impressed Marks with his playmaking as a 6-foot 8, 246-pound point forward. He showed some scoring chops as well, including registering a 34.5% rate from three-point ranges on 3 attempts per game last season. He’ll bring a level of physicality, particularly on the defensive end, to this soft team, though there are questions about how he’ll adapt to the pace of the NBA game. He might turn out to be a two-inch taller version of Jalen Wilson.

If that ends up being the case with Jefferson while Cenac develops into an integral piece on a Celtics title contender, Nets fans will have one more proverbial arrow to aim at Marks.

Under the category of no good deed goes unpunished, the Devils will be selecting 12^th in Friday’s NHL Draft because they closed out last season ethically with 14 wins in their last 23 meaningless games. At the lower slot, it’s even more about guessing at a teenager’s projection.

Friday will be out first opportunity to view new General Manager Sunny Mehta’s priorities. His predecessors focused on speed (Ray Shero) and then size (Tom Fitzgerald). I’m just hoping the Devils select someone on Friday who can one day help a team that has been stuck in the mud for all but two of the last 14 seasons move forward. After loading up on defensemen with their last three first-round picks, it’s time to turn their attention to their depleted prospect pool up front.

Here are some of the top candidates who might drop into New Jersey’s lap on Friday:

Wyatt Cullen (LW, U.S. National Team Development Program)

I’d say Cullen, the son of former NHLer Matt, is the least likely of these names to be on the board, but he was in the latest mocks posted recently by The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler and Corey Pronman. The Devils lack scoring on the wing outside of underachieving Timo Meier and Cullen is the best skater on my list. Scouts rave about his playmaking. Though measured at 6-foot 1 and 183 pounds at the NHL Combine, he is not known for being exceptionally hard to play against. That would have probably been a red flag under the old regime, but the Devils are underskilled in the bottom six, so Cullen, one of the youngest players in this Draft who is headed to the University of Minnesota for seasoning, is worth a flyer.

Tynan Lawrence (C, Boston University)

The Devils may stand to benefit here from the fall of a higher-rated prospect. Lawrence, who disappointed many scouts as the NCAA’s second-youngest player last season, has the potential to drive a middle-six line when he matures. Wheeler mentioned him as one of the best skaters in the Draft. Lawrence was hobbled by injuries before joining BU in January and then it took him a while to make the transition from the USHL. The poor production was a concern, but he gained high marks for his compete level. Remember, many of these guys in this range might not see New Jersey for three years. I’d rather the Devils luck out with a fallen gifted player than a slower moving guy with size like Ethan Belchetz.

Adam Novotny (LW, OHL Peterborough)

If the Devils miss out on the above, Novotny would be an interesting choice as the least worst alternative. The analytics community seems to love him more than many of the mocks, so there could be some cries that this is a reach. No one, though, disputes Novotny’s pro-ready body and shoot-first mentality. His scouting report reads a little like Lenni Hameenaho 2.0, a puck hound with superior skating over New Jersey’s 2023 second rounder. Novotny, who will turn 19 in November, is coming off a strong junior season, his first after arriving from his native Czechia. Given Novotny’s relative maturity and the fact that a U.S. College stint appears to be off the table, the Devils might feel comfortable with allowing him to develop in the AHL in lieu of another junior season, making him a phone call away whenever his growth warrants a call-up.

Raise the floor!

Julius Randle, whom the Nets reportedly acquired from Minnesota on Monday night in exchange for center Nic Claxton (who will be re-routed to Chicago), is a decent offensive creator who will provide enhanced physicality. Listed at 6-foot 8 and 250 pounds, Randle’s presence will allow guys like Michael Porter Jr. and Noah Clowney to revert to their more natural positions. Brooklyn General Manager Sean Marks was also able to get the Timberwolves to swap picks in Tuesday’s NBA Draft, with the Nets moving up five slots to No. 28 overall in the first round.

Brooklyn’s dive to the abyss seemed to take a mental toll on Claxton; he needed a change in address as much as the Nets needed (and probably still needs) to obtain a center who has to be guarded at the three-point line. Randle, or sophomore Danny Wolf, can play there in small doses against some backups to finally give Brooklyn a modern five-out look.

Understand, however, that Randle isn’t the same player who earned three All-Star berths while with the Knicks. He’s been relatively durable for most of his career, playing 79 games last season, but he’ll turn 32 in November. Despite consistently averaging around five assists per game, he’s a notorious ball-stopper who has had issues in the hustle department. And his three-point efficiency hasn’t hit the league average since 2020-21.

That’s why so many of the initial takes from Brooklyn’s perspective have been mainly complimentary when projecting an initial bump from Randle’s injection into the mix, but they also note concerns about the law of diminishing returns. Randle will add another liability to Brooklyn’s defensive lineup, one that will now go without Claxton, a top-notch rim protector and 1-throuigh-5 switcher.

Sirius XM host Brian Geltzeiler put it perfectly in a Twitter post: Randle has always been a floor raiser, but he has struggled as a ceiling raiser. From my vantage, he’s talented, but not as talented as he seems to think he is.

It will be interesting to watch how Jordi Fernandez manages any turbulence from Randle’s peccadillos. The Nets HC did give his better players virtually unfettered freedom with the ball in their hands the last two seasons. But that was when the team was amenable to losing.

As for Marks, the added payroll commitment—Randle is owed $69 million over the next two seasons (assuming he exercises his 2027-28 player option) while Claxton’s declining scale contract will count for $44.4 million over the same term—may or may not affect the Nets going forward, since they can still get to as much as $37 million in cap space if they decline all four team options on Day’Ron Sharpe, Ziaire Williams, Josh Minott, and Malachi Smith. Of course, since Sharpe is the de facto starting center at this moment, the Nets will need to extend him if they opt not to pay his $6.25 million contract. Still, the Nets lessened their flexibility for this offseason, but by no means did they wipe it out.

This trade could have more implications as to where Marks goes with Tuesday’s No. 6 overall pick. I think it makes it less likely that the Nets select a point guard with defensive questions like Arkansas’ Darious Acuff Jr., and though all signs are pointing to Louisville’s Mikel Brown Jr., I wouldn’t be shocked if it was all smoke to keep Arizona’s Brayden Burries, a better perimeter defender, under wraps. Brooklyn could also use a big man with their upgraded second pick; Zuby Ejiofor (St. John’s), whom I mocked to the Nets in my last post, stands a much better chance of being on the board at 28 versus 33.

The Nets were always going to push for improvement over a 20-62 tank year with the rights to their 2027 1 belonging to Houston. They can do that by simply trying. Adding Randle and a young point guard will help in the production metrics, but there will likely be a major offset on the other end without Claxton.

I wouldn’t call it a wash; the Nets should extract marginal wins with this trade and gaining five Draft slots. But for anyone predicting that Brooklyn will suddenly become competitive in the East, they’re in for a rude awakening.

For those like the evaluator in the post by ESPN’s Rich Cimini who wondered why quarterback Brendan Sorsby did not simply declare for the 2026 NFL Draft following his solid junior season at Cincinnati, it was because Texas Tech’s oil barons offered him $5 million in NIL money to transfer to a team with National Championship aspirations. That’s more dough than what Ty Simpson will draw in first-year salary as the Rams’ No. 13 overall pick, never mind what Sorsby would have fetched had he fallen out of Day 1 as projected. Instead, he bet on himself that another college season would upgrade the ensuing payout.

Um, maybe “bet” isn’t the most becoming of verbs when addressing the tumultuous chronology of events that has put Sorsby in this situation. Sorsby, who announced on Wednesday his intention to enter next month’s NFL’s supplemental draft, has a gambling problem. As a college athlete, he reportedly placed thousands of bets while losing approximately $90,000 before submitting to a 35-day stay at a rehabilitation facility. Though the NCAA was prohibited by an injunction from a rogue Texas judge (talk about home field advantage!) from suspending Sorsby for the 2026 campaign, the QB opted to withdraw from the fight by going pro, perhaps because Texas Tech announced that it isn’t clawing back the NIL comp.

NFL teams are now doing their due diligence on Sorsby to determine what bid, if any, they will submit to the league in advance of the supplemental draft. The “bid” is a 2027 pick in the regular Draft, with the winning team forfeiting that selection. The order for any given round is more random, though teams with six or fewer wins from 2025 like the Jets (3-14) are clumped together in the same group.

The evaluation process on Sorsby is fraught with complications. There’s the football side, which isn’t unanimous, and then there’s the character analysis. Let’s start with the latter:

Uncovering a scandal of this nature was more than foreseeable. Gambling advertising is ubiquitous throughout society. College athletes, even those who are now getting paid, have always been overly susceptible to the sin given their youth and competitive urges. No amounts of disclaimers in fine print or tones are going to reach addicts. Sorsby will have to learn how to manage his problem for the rest of his life. That isn’t going to be easy, especially if he lands an NFL contract giving him excessive disposable income on hand.

However, Sorsby’s is far from the worst case. Though court records showed he bet on about 40 games involving Cincinnati and Indiana, his previous teams, he never stood a real chance of participating in any of them. No fixes, good or bad, were charged. If you want to accuse anyone of throwing games, look no further than the Jets, who started overmatched rookie Brady Cook for the last four contests to ensure better Draft odds. Except the NFL calls such behavior fair game, so I was among many fans who endorsed it.

In addition, Sorsby, personally or through his friends, did not have to go to sordid characters on the street to place bets; they went through regulated outlets like FanDuel. Like all their customers, Sorsby had to front the money, so no one was ever going to have to threaten to break his legs or force him to commit criminal acts if he failed to pay. Allegedly, you can’t even use credit cards.

If any of the above fact pattern was untrue, Sorsby would have crossed a line of no return. A pro league can’t have a whiff of risk that games aren’t on the level. Banishment would have been the proper adjudication.

I don’t mean to downplay the seriousness of Sorsby’s condition—his private interviews with teams should be intrusive, to say the least, as to his newfound (if any) life perspective--but since his past transgressions do not appear to have imperiled the integrity of the games he played, it wouldn’t be a travesty if the ultimate determination on his employment status came down to his ability on those fields.

Per scouting reports, Sorsby has an NFL arm and was a dual threat for the Bearcats last season, with 37 combined touchdowns (28 passing, 9 rushing) compared to eight turnovers (seven interceptions and one lost fumble). He is known for his sack avoidance (7 sacks and a 6.1 pressure-to-sack ratio, the second lowest in the FBS. per ProFootballFocus.com), but it sometimes led to inaccuracy issues—ESPN charted him with a 13.8% off target rate with only 75.3% of his balls deemed catchable, both lousy metrics relative to other recently drafted QBs.

The Jets, though, can’t afford to be overly picky. It’s not like Sorsby can’t play. Gang Green missed out on the Fernando Mendoza sweepstakes by a game, so they are entrusting the position to Geno Smith, who will turn 36 in October and is coming off a poor campaign with Las Vegas. Smith is the present only by default. There isn’t even a veteran QB2 on the roster. Meanwhile, counting on fourth round pick Cade Klubnik to represent the future is a cruel joke on the tortured fan base. By the way, Sorsby, 22, is a few months younger than Klubnik.

The Jets organization has been hinting to the gullible public that they’re ok with punting the answer to their perennial fatal flaw to next offseason. On the other side of their mouths, though, they’ve been giving strong indications that a repeat of last season’s utter debacle would be unacceptable. There is never a playoff mandate, but improvement should be expected. Hence, six or seven wins isn’t off the table.

Of course, without a commitment to another year of tanking, which no fan wants to endure, such a record wouldn’t be awful enough for them to land a slot at the top of the 2027 Draft. By New York’s turn, the best college QBs would again be off the board, leaving them high and dry. After doing yeoman’s work to obtain pick assets in trading away some of the old core, General Manager Darren Mougey shouldn’t be so quick to surrender his three 2027 1s just to move up for a throw at the QB dartboard.

Wouldn’t it be preferable for the Jets to just procure a quality young quarterback into the program a year early? The analytics experts call that taking advantage of “time value.” Even if Sorsby gets suspended by the NFL for something like 8 games, who cares? He’s not supposed to play right away anyway. He’d be allowed to learn on the job instead of being thrown to the wolves while ill-prepared, a complete change in tack from what fans have become used to seeing from this woebegone franchise.

With those three 1s in their 2027 cupboard, the Jets could get away with submitting a second-round bid for Sorsby. For those about to have a coronary, have you seen whom the Jets have historically drafted in that round? Before running back Breece Hall in 2022, the only second rounder they took this century who performed above expectations was linebacker David Harris. Take a gander at their 2s going back 20 years further—you’ll die of cringe.

Understand that snaring Sorsby wouldn’t necessarily preclude the Jets from using a high 2027 pick on a quarterback they value. Smith is on a one-year deal while neither Bailey Zappe nor Cook is a long-term solution. I have yet to see anyone who thinks Klubnik is the better prospect.

The consensus among Jets writers is that Mougey will stay clear of Sorsby on the basis that character questions trump talent. It’s absolutely the easier sell. But you know what’s harder? Finding a franchise quarterback.

Not that Sorsby is guaranteed to be one. But if he too ends up as another in a long line of Jets busts, you have to keep taking shots, from any conceivable angle, even if it’s, pardon the expression, a somewhat risky bet. The position is that crucial to the sustainability of a football team’s success. Hard to believe the Jets still have not learned this after 58 years of failure.