Brooklyn Nets GM Sean Marks speaks, introduces rookie class in presser

Sean Marks and Jordi Fernández flanked five rookies, who introduced themselves to Nets World on Tuesday at HSS

The Brooklyn Nets held the longest press conference in team history on Tuesday afternoon, as their five first-round draft picks were flanked by Head Coach Jordi Fernández on one side and General Manager Sean Marks on the other.

Or was it the widest?

“Well, we’ve never had three tables up here,” opened Sean Marks.

The presser lasted a manageable half-hour, split seven ways. As such, we only got to hear snippets from each participant. Marks spoke the most, though was unable to comment on Monday’s big Cam Johnson-Michael Porter Jr. swap since the trade won’t become official until July 6.

Thus, there were only a couple questions on everybody’s mind. First, aren’t the Brooklyn Nets worried about trying to develop five rookies at once? Even Jordi Fernández admitted: “That’s a good question.”

“The way I see it is, I’m going to focus on the team and what we’re trying to build as a group. And these young men are part of our family now. And they’re going to have to earn it; and I think that’s how it should be. They’ll put the work in. They’ve already shown who they are: That’s why we drafted them … Player development is going to be important. We’ve been very diligent. The coaching staff has done a great job making our guys work, and those guys have improved, and we believe they’ll do the same thing.”

Sean Marks added: “The coaching staff, development staff’s proven that they’ve done a great job. And I think that gives me utmost confidence in developing these five guys. And if I don’t think we have that confidence in our staff, we probably wouldn’t have done it.”

Fair enough. But that brings us to the second question: Won’t it be even harder to do that when three of those rookies are Egor Demin, Nolan Traoré, and Ben Saraf, players who don’t just share a position but a general play-style? Each has spent the majority of his pre-NBA careers initiating a ton of pick-and-roll offense as a lead ball-handler.

Last season, Brooklyn’s offense under Fernández set a ton of ball-screens and ran many dribble-handoffs, but still. Three? Alas, the Nets don’t seem to be worried about it.

Said Marks: “The scouting work that we’ve done on these guys throughout not just this year but leading up to this year would lead us to believe it’s a versatile class, right? They can play multiple positions. As Jordi just mentioned, multiple ball-handlers. I think to be able to come in here and limit guys and say ‘you can only fit into this category or this position,’ you’ve heard all the cliches, position-less basketball and so forth. But you want high IQ guys. That’s what we’ve got here.”

Marks & Co. did not give out many specifics on Tuesday afternoon. He hardly blinked when I asked if this somewhat more than unconventional draft class, which heavily indexed playmaking, signaled a change in scouting philosophy or if it was a happy coincidence in terms of taking the best player available.

But if the Nets delivered one consistent message, it was that they don’t expect these rookies to get in each other’s way. From Jordi Fernández: “All these guys can really pass the ball. All those paint touches and ball reversals, it just helps you when you have not primary ball handlers, but also secondary ball handlers and all these guys can do it.”

All the way down to Ben Saraf: “I think we all can play several positions, so I don’t think it’s gonna gonna be a problem. I’m super excited to share the court with those guys. I think it’s gonna be amazing.”

Whether the Nets earnestly think all five players can co-exist on a rebuilding team, much less the same court, only time will tell. Las Vegas Summer League, starting on July 10, should be a nice little preview.

Other than that, it was your standard introductory press conference, even if there were three tables instead of one or two. Danny Wolf recapped his journey from a deep-bench reserve at Yale to a high-end starter on Michigan to the NBA. Drake Powell reiterated his earnest desire to do whatever he can for the team, and — in a typical belief for the most athletic guy in the room — that defense is all about “pride.”

If one player won the press conference, though, it was the charmingly shy Egor Demin…

For every question generally addressed to the players, Demin was eager to step up and answer in his second (third?) language first.

“This team is a good fit for me, and I’m a good fit for this team. Obviously because it’s a lot of athleticism, young guys, and I believe we could be a really high pace and high volume team, right? Just being able to run coast to coast. And for me, how efficient can I find those defensive rebounds and just find the outlet as fast as I can?”

He also connected the dots on the triangular connection between himself, Andrei Kirilenko, and the Nets, which Net Income reported on earlier this week…

In other words, Demin proved himself as a worthy potential face of the franchise. That’s a lofty title to bestow on the #8 overall pick, but off the court, he does seem like everything this front office has valued since coming into power nearly a decade ago.

In Brooklyn, culture is more than a buzzword. Sitting at the podium at HSS Training Facility Egor Demin, Drake Powell, and their rookie cohorts felt like true Brooklyn Nets.

Is that a good thing? Eh. Only if they can hoop.

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To watch the full presser, click here…

If you want to listen to an in-depth conversation on each of Brooklyn’s five rookies, and what the draft class might say about their scouting department as a whole, I have a special episode of The Backcourt for you.

I was joined by one of my favorite NBA Draft thinkers and my colleague at Swish Theory, Ahmed Jama, with both the Spotify and Apple Music links in the post below…