NetsDaily Off-Season Report - No. 21
We’ll be updating the Nets’ off-season weekly, with bits and pieces of information, gossip, and everything in between to help fans get ready for ... anything. The Brooklyn Nets roster is finally coming into view as training camp and the official beginning of preseason looms. Nets GM Sean Marks and head coach Jordi Fernandez will face beat writers on Thursday, then four days after that, a week from Monday, players will get their chance to answer questions at Media Day. The next day, October 1, training camp will begin in earnest in Brooklyn.
The official roster will be handed out to reporters as they arrive for Media Day, but as of this point, the list breaks down this way:
FULLY GUARANTEED (13)
Ben Simmons
Cam Johnson
Nic Claxton
Bojan Bogdanovic
Dorian Finney-Smith
Dennis Schroder
Shake Milton
Cam Thomas
Day’Ron Sharpe
Ziaire Williams
Trendon Watford
Noah Clowney
Dariq Whitehead
PARTIALLY GUARANTEED (2)
Jalen Wilson
Keon Johnson
TWO-WAY (2)
Jaylen Martin
Yongxi ‘Jacky’ Cui
EXHIBIT 10 CAMP INVITES (3)
Killian Hayes
Amari Bailey
Tyrese Martin
That leaves one spot — a two-way — but that may be filled by one of the camp invites, if they’re eligible. Hayes is not because he’s in his fifth year and two-ways can only have up to four years service in the league. Both Bailey and Martin are in their second year.
As of this point, it appears that only one player, Bogdanovic who’s the team’s oldest player at 35, won’t be ready to go. Nothing official on his status, but in his Lowe Post segment on the Nets this week, Zach Lowe said simply, “Bogdanovic is hurt.” Moreover, Bogdanovic who underwent wrist and foot surgery in late April. wasn’t ready to play in an exhibition game honoring Drazen Petrovic’s 60th birthday on September 5 in Croatia. Expect to hear more from Marks about Bogdanovic on Thursday.
Simmons, however, will be ready. As we’ve reported on The Brooklyn Podcast, Ben10 had playing playing 5-on-5 in Miami before arriving in Brooklyn almost two weeks ago. Chris Haynes reported Friday that Simmons agent had confirmed he’s ready to go...
Brooklyn Nets star Ben Simmons (recovered from a back procedure) will be a go to begin training camp on Oct. 1 with no restrictions, his agent Bernie Lee tells me: “Ben is fully cleared and is a full participant for the start of camp. He is excited to get started.” pic.twitter.com/FeAlR85j2L— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) September 20, 2024
A few other relevant facts about the roster, as it stands and yes, it could change right up until NBA Opening Night on October 22:
Of the 20 players who we believe will be in camp, 14 are 25 and under; 12 are 23 and under and five are 21 and under. Whitehead and Clowney remain the youngest. Only three are older than 30: Bogdanovic (35), Finney-Smith and Schroder (both 31.)
Five are international: Simmons (Australia,) Schroder (Germany,) Bogdanovic (Croatia,) Hayes (France, ) and Cui (China.) Thomas was born in Japan but in a U.S. military hospital.
Three Nets are LSU products: Ben Simmons, Cam Thomas and Trendon Watford, the latter two having played together in 2020-21. And two other players on the expanded roster, Ziaire Williams and Amari Bailey, played together at Sierra Canyon High School.
The Nets have signed other players to Exhibit 10s but they’ve been waived or are about to be and their rights automatically assigned to Long Island. Among those are Patrick Gardner, the 6’11” Egyptian national team center who played for Long Island last season and Tyson Etienne, a 6’2” point guard who played for the College Park Skyhawks. Point guard Mark Armstrong and wing KJ Johnson III both of whom played for the Nets Summer League team, are not currently on the Brooklyn roster. G League training camps open October 28.
A little intel — but little love — from Lowe
Zach Lowe used his latest edition of “The Lowe Post” to look at the NBA’s bottom dwellers and we have to say he liked the Nets chances ... for the bottom. It was almost unrelievedly awful if you’re a Nets fan. Like virtually everyone, he likes the future with all those draft picks and all that cap space, but the present looks dismal. Indeed on more than one occasion as Lowe lapses into optimism, he stops himself with an “I don’t know,” or, “oh, who am I kidding?” summing things up with this prediction, “by February, this team will be a rough watch.” Only then?
The ESPN writer starts off by “worrying” about Ben Simmons starting.
“I’m worried, maybe i should be excited, I’m little worried Ben Simmons is going to be in the starting lineup,” he said, then explaining that he’s not worried about Simmons playing. He says he’s excited for the Simmons comeback. It’s more about who won’t play if Simmons does start: the veterans the Nets are looking to trade as well as younger players — the 14 players 25 and under — who are the centerpiece of the rebuild till the picks are come due.
“There are veterans here who the Nets should and will try to trade,” he tells Steve Jones Jr. “Finney-Smith who had a player option for next season; Cam Johnson has three years left on kind of a big deal actually.”
He also notes, “the bench is going to be a little rough. Bojan Bogdanovic is hurt,” which we discussed above. He does offer some optimism here and there, particularly with Noah Clowney.
“Clowney is the nerd selling point. He showed some real flashes last year as a rim protector. He just played some at the 4, some at the 5 and his role on the floor drastically changed depending on which one he was,” then adds. “I don’t know.”
He also suggests maybe the Nets should try to trade Claxton (who they just signed to a four-year, $97 million contract). “Some team should be trying to steal Claxton. Claxton’s good. He’s legit good,” said Lowe, long a fan of the Nets center. “He’s become underrated on offense. He’s not just a lob catcher. He’s kind of a good passer. He and Clowney had some glimpses,” Then, he stops one again mid sentence, “oh, who am I kidding — they’re in a tank...”
He does say, somewhat off-handedly, that he’s “heard” Ziaire Williams, the 6’9” 23-year-old wing, obtained in an off shoot of the Mikal Bridges deal, is playing well.
“By the way, Ziaire Williams, who they got from Memphis, I’ve heard, has looked pretty good this summer. He’ll get a chance.” he told Jones.
His biggest questions he reserves for Cam Thomas, wondering about whether CamT will be simply decide to “shoot it every time.” forgetting the rest of the game. He also cited other teams’ executives doubts about the Nets four-year guard.
“Look, the guy can really score! He can really score. I don’t know what to do with Cam Thomas, because there are front office people who probably don’t watch Cam Thomas as much as I do because they have to watch college and international who are just blanket, ‘No, not even for the minimum. not on our team. Can’t have him,’ and I’m like, ‘do you see the shots he can make? He kinda discovered passing a little bit last year,
“But I am worried that this team is going to be an excuse for him to be ‘alright. I’m averaging 30 a game. Let’s go! Let’s roll the ball out. I’m shooting it everytime.”
This is not the first time we’ve heard such rumors about Thomas, but if the Nets have any doubts, they seemed to have resolved them and it’s no secret, at least around HSS, that the owner may very well be Thomas’ biggest fan.
China, Cui and Tsai
Yongxi “Jacky” Cui is the first Chinese-born basketball player to sign an NBA contract in five years, since Zhou Qi was drafted by the Houston Rockets in 2016 and played two non-descript years in the NBA. So, there will be some attention on Cui in the U.S. but in China, it’s a much bigger deal. Fans want to know where they can get his Brooklyn — and Long Island — jerseys.
Expect Chinese media to swarm Nassau Coliseum when he suits up for the Long Island Nets in November as they did at Trail Blazers games in the Summer League. Indeed, that process began Friday night when Cui spoke with Chinese media via Zoom and offered his thoughts on where things are headed for him as a player on the Brooklyn Nets.
“My mindset is in a good place. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to play here, but I believe the longer I stay, the more I can improve and help both myself and the Chinese national team,” said Cui.
“I have to start from the development league and then improve my skills and experience,” Cui said of the G League. “Only then can I slowly move to the NBA bench and maybe [get] NBA rotation. I don’t know how far I will go, but first of all, I have to take each step well, I think that is the key.”
His reference to the Chinese national team shouldn’t be a surprise. The days of Yao Ming, Yi Jianlian and other NBA players leading China in international competition are over for now. Chinese basketball is stuck in a deep trough and he is a big part of the plan to get it moving again.
China’s national team has now missed qualifying for two straight Olympics for the first time ever. In 2019, it lost to Nigeria at the FIBA World Cup which eliminated them from the Tokyo Games. Then making things worst in the 2023 Cup, China to the Philippines which kept them home from Paris this summer. It was the first time China had lost to an Asian rival in a major international men’s basketball tournament and it wasn’t close. The Filipinos won by 21 points.
According to China’s Global Times, fans and netizens expressed their frustration on the Weibo social platform, where a hashtag about their losses in the tournament racked up 120 million views!
Cui is currently the youngest member of the national team and its best hope going forward. The NBA and the G League are the next natural step for the 21-year-old after he spent time as a teenager at the NBA Global Academy in Canberra, Australia, then played big minutes in the Chinese Basketball Association.
No one is saying what role Joe Tsai played, if any, in Cui’s signing. Reading machine translations of Cui’s interviews with Chinese media, Saturday, he says Tsai had nothing to do with his signing, that the Nets were impressed with his predraft workouts and Summer League games with Blazers in Las Vegas.
That said, Tsai is a powerful figure in China and has been very active in the national basketball program and NBA China. He sponsors the Joe Tsai Basketball Scholarship, program, a long-term effort to improve China’s hoops success. Every year, he sends 10 Chinese middle schoolers between the ages of 13 and 15 to US private schools for basketball training and education much as he did. (He himself developed his love of basketball during five years at Lawrenceville School in New Jersey.)
Tsai has also been instrumental in getting the NBA back in China’s good graces following the 2019 controversy over then-Rockets GM Daryl Morey’s tweet during Hong Kong’s internal demonstrations which Chinese authorities saw as a call for city’s independence. Tsai penned an open letter at the time noting how China, as a matter of history, will not countenance any discussion of separatism.
While some college teams have visited China of late, no NBA teams have visited China since 2019 when the Nets and Lakers had their trip tarred by the controversy. In February of this year, speaking at a sports conference in China, Tsai said that five years later, “I think the NBA is in a very good place with respect to its relationship with China,” Tsai, who is also the chairman of Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group added. “China is actually the NBA’s biggest fan base. So what happened before, I think it’s water under the bridge.”
The NBA would “love” to bring the games back to China, he said then. “I think just having the fans have real, in-person sort of interaction with the stars. I think that’s going to be important.”
But in June in another interview in China, Tsai seemed to take a step back. While things have improved between China and the NBA, he said politics between the U.S. and China are now the impediment. In his comments, he also suggested if there was a breakthrough in sports, it could lead to a “more benign relationship” between the two superpowers. “Due to geopolitical situation right now it would be very difficult to bring the NBA to mainland China. But in due course I hope to see a China tour because what that reflects is a more benign relationship.”
Cui’s signing is another, small, incremental step along that road, which is important to the NBA’s international goals. Tsai is right. The Chinese market for the NBA is more than 300 million people. However, it would also be unfair to put any of that pressure on a 21-year-old. You can be sure the Nets won’t. But whenever China and the U.S. get involved, exterior forces come into play. Watch this space.
Final Note
Sunday afternoon, the New York Liberty will host the Atlanta Dream at Barclays Center, starting at 1:00 p.m. ET on ESPN, the first game of the WNBA playoffs. The Libs have just completed their most successful season ever, going 32-8, and they are the title favorites having secured the No. 1 seed. But New York’s team has gotten to the WNBA Finals five times including last season without a trophy.
This has been a spectacular season for the Libs, on the court, in the stands with Miss Ellie leading the way. Best of luck. We’ll be looking forward to the parade!
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