What to expect, hope for Brooklyn Nets’ young players entering 2026-27

I did not write anything about the Brooklyn Nets’ play at Las Vegas Summer League. Nor the California Classic, for that matter. Let’s amend that and a look at an assortment of Brooklyn’s young players, examining what we saw during the summer and what we’d like to see in 2026-27. Again, limited to those that played this summer. Sorry, Nolan Traoré. I like the haircut though.

Mikel Brown Jr.

Like you, I cannot wait to watch Mikel Brown Jr. this season.

I’m most curious about his long-range 3-point shooting. Over four games this summer, the #6 overall pick shot 9-of-26 from deep in 86 minutes of player. At Louisville, he shot a pedestrian 34.4% from deep, but half of his makes were self-created and he took nearly 15 attempts per 100 possessions. It’s the variety, the volume, and the 84.4% from the line that drives optimism for his 3-point shooting.

Brown Jr. wasn’t shy to pull this summer, but I still felt like he left opportunities on the table…

Mikel will suffer from a lack of upper body strength as a near-teenage guard in the NBA, no question. He is at his most exciting when he hits second gear going north-to-south, going around/by defenders rather than through them. And Brown Jr. will find more of these opportunities if he proves himself a capable shooter (on pull-ups especially) from 25+ feet, shots we’ve seen on his highlight tapes as well as in summer workouts…

Though Mikel Brown Jr. shot around 65% at the rim (depending on your source) for Louisville, it was on fairly low volume, and I expect his rim-scoring to be subpar in his rookie NBA season. He’s a fine vertical athlete, but he’s lacking the strength to excel down there, for now. Not a long term worry.

As such, I hope to see Brown Jr. stress-test his 3-point shooting for the Nets. Ben Saraf and Nolan Traoré were all but explicitly banned from shooting pull-up threes last season (rightfully so), while Egor Dëmin played off-ball more than Mikel will this season. How much license will the #6 pick have to fire? How many long-distance threes can he shoot while forcing defenses to play up on him?

If defenses feel the need to apply pressure, it gives Mikel Brown Jr. more opportunities to make the type of plays that’ll have you making irresponsible comparisons down in the comments…

It’s always wise to be wary of late-season ballers who do NBA damage in March and April. I’m pretty sure Noah Clowney blocked more shots during the spring of his rookie season than he’s blocked since. Alas, Chaney Johnson was out there hooping for the tanking Nets, enough to earn a two-way contract with Brooklyn heading into 2026-27. He was great at Las Vegas Summer League as well.

There are plenty of reasons to doubt Johnson’s NBA future. He is currently a 24-year-old 6’7″ center who hasn’t been a consistent 3-point shooter at any point in his career. Even during his inspiring run of play last season, the Auburn product still had one of the highest foul-rates in the NBA. I appreciate that Johnson tries to dunk everything, but he still wasn’t a great finisher (nor rim protector) at the NBA level, and there’s no reason to think that’ll change with a bigger sample size.

Still, he plays hard as hell. Bucking the lineage of gangly, thin-chested Brooklyn bigs, he is compact and physical, living on the offensive glass but passing and ball-handling well enough to evince his past as a wing. He was the same player — but better — against lesser competition this summer. He made threes and free-throws in a small sample, sure, but he also racked up 15 steals and 24 offensive rebounds in six games!

Chaney Johnson is undersized but he plays hard and physical. Can he outsmart opponents as well?

That’s a great defensive play. I hope Johnson gets some small chance to make an impact for the Brooklyn Nets this season; is he the third-string center right now? I think he’s earned an opportunity, however small, to prove his strength + smarts can play at the highest level, even if there are plenty of reasons to doubt him.

When is Drake Powell going to play? That’s a serious question. He seems prime to be a victim of perhaps the most interesting team-building storyline following the Brooklyn Nets this season: When do you start to give up on draft picks? The Nets want to take a step toward competitiveness this season, and there’s seemingly a million guys on the roster who have a case for minutes.

I felt bad watching Powell this summer. He had that brutal streak of misses from the field, unable to even get a cheapie in transition. But while his jumper needs improvement, that was a secondary concern. If NBA Combine scores were hidden from the public, would Powell still have a reputation as an elite athlete? I don’t think so. He is laterally explosive, to be sure, though the absence of a threatening handle hides that trait on offense.

Against lesser competition this summer, Drake Powell just didn’t pop as either a player or an athlete. He actually finished pretty well at the rim last season, of course on low volume, but there are still so many plays like this in his catalogue…

Powell has an angle with a live dribble, an opportunity to let his renowned athleticism shine and get up at the rim. Instead, an awkward fading jumper that smears the glass. It’s the lack of explosive finishes, deflections, and rebounds that worry me. I understand Drake Powell is raw, but I’m not sure he’s an elite basketball athlete either.

Egor Dëmin

Egor Dëmin has his jorts, his jewelry, his new haircut, and that wispy mustache + goatee combo, fully assimilated to the North Brooklyn young professional lifestyle. Look at our boy go. He’s also been in the weight room, which he credits for his newfound comfort as a driver and overall 2-point scorer.

I have my reservations, you’ll be thrilled to hear. Dëmin wasn’t just missing strength last season. The Russian then-teen had some other deficiencies, also present this summer and — hey, whatever. He shot 22-of-29 on two-pointers over five games in July. Nets fans should be excited for his sophomore year, even as NBA defender occasionally exploit his relative lack of shake. Still, the most encouraging sign is that Dëmin seems simultaneously stronger and quicker…

Egor can dump that off to Chaney Johnson (who dunks it anyway), but doesn’t he just feel snappier in that clip? Slow-to-fast-to-slow-to-fast.

My hope for Dëmin isn’t solely that he makes more layups and dunks, it’s that his improved ball-handling + strength allow him to explore the paint and make more high-level passes. I harped on the lack of assists leading to shots at the rim last season, and in general, I thought we didn’t see the number of high-level passes commensurate with his reputation as a prospect.

But Dëmin should have the ball in his hands more moving forward, and Mikel Brown Jr. should bring more passing ability and scoring gravity than any backcourt partner Dëmin played with last season. I can’t wait to judge his improvement.

Danny Wolf is approaching his age-22 season. He is graded on a stricter curve than any other young Net. Will he find minutes as a third-string center (in addition to playing next to Day’Ron Sharpe + Moe Wagner) instead of Chaney Johnson? Is he strictly a big wing that can shoot and attack closeouts?

It’s easy to get lost in the positional weeds with Wolf, but the key for 2025’s #27 overall pick is finishing at the rim. Then we can talk about everything else. Per Synergy Sports:

Wolf took more shots at the rim (as a % of his overall diet) than 66% of the NBA last season.
Wolf was more efficient at the rim than just 17% of the NBA last season.
Additionally, Wolf shot 9-of-21 on runners and hooks.

His archetype as a multidimensional mismatch just doesn’t work if he’s not scoring on the interior. Wolf shot 16-of-26 from two in Las Vegas Summer League, a more important sign than small-sample frigidity from three, but there were still worrisome, ground-bound plays…

Brooklyn will presumably start Julius Randle and Day’Ron Sharpe together in the front-court this season. They ran pick-and-roll less frequently than the vast majority of NBA teams last season, but ran more dribble-handoff action than any other team in the league. Now they have both a center and a bulky forward who can get Brooklyn into those actions — I’m curious to see the split, and what Sharpe is doing when, for example, Randle and Dëmin and playing a two-man game. Does Jordi Fernández trust Sharpe to space and shoot corner threes? Dunker spot?

Joshua Jefferson will see plenty of minutes in Long Island early, but I have the same questions about his usage. How often will he play as a dribble-handoff hub, how often will he be attacking closeouts and shooting threes?

In Brooklyn, Jefferson will not be the point-forward he was for Iowa State. I look forward to seeing his vision in the open-court — hopefully he maintains strong defensive rebounding numbers — but I am most excited for plays like this…

Jefferson had the ball in his hands a lot in college. He should get the opportunity to hit cutters and play the DHO game with Brooklyn’s shooters early on. But if Jefferson can make 0.5-second decisions off the catch and read the floor from there, it’ll be a lot easier for Fernández to get him on the floor.

The Brooklyn Nets will hold Media Day on September 28, and NetsDaily will once again have you covered. Training camp and the preseason soon follow, and the Nets tip off preseason on the road against the Charlotte Hornets on October 6. Suddenly, we’re almost there, folks.

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