The NCAA tournament’s Final Four is on Saturday night, and the Brooklyn Nets should be keeping a close eye on the festivities as the 2025 NBA Draft inches closer.
Right now, Tankathon projects the Nets (currently 25-52) to start drafting at No. 6. The team would have three subsequent first-rounders at No. 17 (via the Milwaukee Bucks), No. 26 (via the New York Knicks) and No. 27 via the Houston Rockets). Both Final Four games — Florida vs. Auburn and Houston vs. Duke — feature draft prospects worth evaluating.
Here are some possible draft picks that Brooklyn might be watching, and how they can fit the organization’s recent philosophical ideas.
If the Nets’ draft begins at No. 6, that puts the team right in the range to select Duke center Khaman Maluach. The pitch on the South Sudanese big is that he’s an elite play finisher and versatile defender with a constant track record of quick improvement in his nascent basketball career. Maluach only started playing basketball at the end of 2019, when he was 13 years old and a refugee in Uganda.
Maluach, now 18 until this September, has converted an astonishing 78.4% of his 153 shots at the rim. That’s incredibly high conversion also on fairly high volume. He’s an ideal lob catcher, having developed great synergy with Blue Devils guard and projected lottery pick Kon Knueppel, and he can also rebound and make his free throws. On defense, the 7-foot-2 Maluach is rapidly learning how to take away angles in the pick-and-roll without necessarily getting the block, and he also has the tools and flashes to guard in space.
The Duke freshman still has his rash moments on defense, and his hands can continue improving on offense, but that’s a very slight nitpick considering his elite percentages near the basket. In a high end outcome, Maluach can fit the mold of recent Brooklyn bigs like DeAndre Jordan or Jarrett Allen.
The Nets already have bigs on their roster, but head coach Jordi Fernández doesn’t mind playing more than one 5-man on the floor at once. Another lob-catching big who can come up with important defensive plays is Houston’s JoJo Tugler, although he’s more of a second round prospect. Tugler is ‘undersized’ for a center at around 6-foot-8, but keep in mind that he has a 7-foot-6 wingspan.
If the May 12 draft lottery goes the Nets’ way, Maluach’s teammate Cooper Flagg would be the ultimate reward for the franchise. However, the only way to acquire the Duke freshman’s services would be through the No. 1 pick. Any outcome other than that places Brooklyn outside of Flagg’s range — but that dream scenario would feature the 18-year-old superstar becoming a Net at Barclays Center, where the draft will take place on June 25 and 26.
Thinking about the Nets’ later picks, the team could look at prioritizing 3-point shooting, which head coach Fernández has highlighted many times in his post-game press conferences. Here, it’s important to look at volume from deep, conversion from three and from other shooting indicators (such as the free throw line and the midrange) and track record (are there constant patterns of this prospect shooting well?).
Duke’s Tyrese Proctor has generated the most buzz in this NCAA tournament, averaging 17 points on 64% from three in his four March Madness games. Overall, though, the Australian guard seems every bit of a sniper. He’s made 41.2% of his threes this season while taking 11.8 threes per 100 possessions. More than 60% of his total shots come from beyond the arc, he can shoot from the midrange and he took a high volume of threes in his two previous college seasons, as well.
However, Proctor has limitations creating space with the ball in his hands and finishing at the rim, which is why he’s gone from point guard to combo guard since arriving at Duke. He’s a similar player to an optimistic version of Killian Hayes, and can be a target for either of the Nets’ picks in the late twenties.
The same range goes for Florida’s Walter Clayton Jr. He can make threes on and off the ball (38.5 3P% this season on 288 shots and 13.6 per 100 possessions), as well as create for others in the pick-and-roll. The Gators guard can be streaky, and he’s not overly big or productive at the rim, but he’s a steady floor general who can carve out a long NBA unit. That will probably come in a second unit.
Blue Devils freshman Isaiah Evans hasn’t played much this season (494 total minutes), but he’s playing a very simple and effective role for Jon Scheyer’s squad. Basically, he’s a juiced up movement shooter who takes a bunch of difficult threes coming off screens, running the floor or pulling up in transition. Evans makes these shots, though, having drilled 42.9% of his catch-and-shoot threes this season while launching 18.1 triples per 100 possessions.
That said, there’s some risk with drafting Evans this year — although another year in college is still in play. He’s still very skinny (appropriately nicknamed ‘Slim’) and he hasn’t shown that he can do much in college besides shoot a lot of threes. Evans doesn’t make plays for others, on the glass or on defense. His previous tape at grassroots level is strong, though.
A much older option, likely for Brookyn’s second round pick at No. 36, is Auburn’s Chad Baker-Mazara. The Tigers guard turned 25 in January and could still return to school for another year. He’s a career 39.4 3P% shooter who’s made more than 40% of his catch-and-shoot threes in all of his college seasons until now, per Synergy. Houston junior Emanuel Sharp is has also made 41.5% of his 200 threes this season while attempting 13.5 per 100 possessions. The Nets have had plenty of quality shooters recently, such as Joe Harris, Yuta Watanabe or Seth Curry. None of these prospects are one-to-one comparisons, but it’s more about giving Brooklyn an injection of three-pointers.
