Nets record five first rounders are aware of their uniqueness.
The Brooklyn Nets five first rounders don’t have a legacy. They’ve only been around each other for a little more than a week, but Egor Demin, Nolan Traore, Drake Powell, Ben Saraf and Danny Wolf realize their situation is unique: the first time an NBA club took five players in the first round of a Draft.
“This is special,” Demin said at a community event with he and the other Nets rookies at a basketball camp in Sunset Park, not far from the HSS Training Center. “Obviously no other team ever did the same thing in the draft. I think for me and the other guys it’s important to be really as close as we can be to each other, not just to compete, which obviously is a big part of it, but also to learn from each other on the court and off the court and learn from the older guys on the team and try to find ways to be together and play together as fast as we can.”
And when the Post’s Peter Botte suggested the team could be the next “Fab Five,” they didn’t back down.
“We’re gonna have to prove ourselves,” said Wolf, who played at Michigan, where the original collegiate Fab Five freshmen including Nets assistant Juwan Howard first popularized the moniker. “The Fab Five arguably is one of the best college teams of all time, so if we can consider ourselves the Fab Five of the NBA at some point in time, that would be pretty cool.
“But I’ll leave it up to you guys [in the media] to give us a nickname.”
“I think it’s pretty good to have five first-round picks like this because we can grow together and build chemistry together,” said Traore, the No. 19 pick. “Maybe we even can be a starting five one day. That would be crazy.”
The day will have to wait, though. The Nets announced that Powell, the 6’6” wing who wowed pundits and front office staffs alike in the Draft Combine, will be in Las Vegas for Summer League but he won’t play. He’s recovering from knee tendinopathy which the Nets described as a minor issue.
Indeed, Powell began to feel the effects of the issue not long before the Draft Combine when he racked up a 43” max vertical, three inches better any any of the 60 other prospects on hand. He also finished in the top 10 of other athletic testing.
Powell told he was “not sure” how much higher he would have jumped at the combine if not for his knee. Now though, he’s dealing with not being able to play in Vegas.
“Absolutely. It’s extremely disappointing not to play because coming in with these guys, I want to compete with them,” Powell said. “So yeah it’s definitely frustrating, but I understand it. I’d say it’s more of a precaution type thing right now.”
Powell will travel with the team to Las Vegas/
“Definitely, just to be there for breaking down film and seeing what we run offensively and defensively and also to get to know my teammates and coaches,” I feel like my explosiveness is what I can bring to the team, both offensively and defensively.”
- The attitude Nets’ quintet of rookies are bringing as they begin to jell – Peter Botte – New York Post
- Nets draft pick Drake Powell not playing in summer league due to knee injury – Peter Botte – New York Post