People around the NBA are laughing at Nets for draft strategy: Brian Windhorst

Where the Nets valued quantity, other NBA power brokers apparently saw a lack of quality.ESPN’s Brian Windhorst revealed that agents and fellow executives ripped the Nets for their eventual five-pick haul from the first round of the 2025 NBA Draft, which included four picks in the No.17-27 range.Some had wondered if the Nets would use the picks to acquire a star or move up, possibly for Rutgers star Ace Bailey amid rumors he would be happy to land in Brooklyn, but the team stayed put.“I got some people telling me some things about Brooklyn.

People are making fun of these draft rooms,” Windorst said on an alternate ESPN broadcast Wednesday night after Brooklyn’s first three picks.“I got people saying to me, executives and agents, they’re like, ‘I was watching them play three two-way guys during this year, so that they could clap for taking guys in the 20s.’ He’s like, ‘These two-way guys might just be as good as the guys they’re taking.’ I don’t know anything about it.

I’m just saying what people are saying.”The Nets entered the draft as a team to watch due to their mass accumulation of picks, with plenty questioning whether they would keep all of the selections due to four falling outside of the lottery.On paper, it’s nice to have five first-rounders.The counter argument is that having four of those land outside the lottery is not the most ideal situation.

Those are usually not franchise-changing picks.That logic is why teams, like the Knicks when they acquired Mikal Bridges, are willing to give up several first-rounders.There’s no guarantee a late-20s pick will be all that helpful to a championship push.An argument could be made that the Nets should have packaged several picks to move up for a player they coveted like Bailey, but the Jazz picked him at No.

5 despite reports he did not want to land there.With Bailey off the board, the Nets made the controversial call to draft BYU’s Egor Demin at No.8 in what some have called ...