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The Brooklyn Nets added themselves to the list of teams that are looking to rebuild after trading Mikal Bridges to the New York Knicks in exchange for three players and a haul of draft picks. Naturally, with Brooklyn staring down a rebuild, it has been rumored that Ben Simmons is on the trading block.
The question that should be asked is what kind of trade would be worth it for the Nets to trade him away? Simmons is heading into the final season of the five-year, $177 million extension that he signed during his days with the Philadelphia 76ers and he is slated to earn $40.3 million over the course of the 2024-25 campaign.
Some Nets fans have come to a logical conclusion of trading Simmons since he should be easier to trade now than ever before now that he is an expiring contract and as the NBA world saw over the past week, having cap space is more important than ever before under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
However, the case can also be made that Simmons should only be traded, assuming that Brooklyn is even open to that with their previous comments implying that Simmons is a significant part of the team, if the Nets are getting back assets that help their rebuild like draft picks and/or young players.
At this point, even if Simmons is unable to play in a lot of games this upcoming season due to injuries or is just less productive than Brooklyn hoped, the worst thing that can happen is that the Nets will have $40.3 million of cap space freed up for next summer.
It should be noted that Brooklyn will have three first-round picks in the 2025 NBA Draft so it’s unlikely that they will be looking for the top free-agents next summer or even be attractive to those players unless something significantly changes between now and then.
Simmons has also worked out well as a backcourt partner with Cam Thomas in the past so having the two as the starting backcourt duo could do wonders for Thomas’ development in a rebuilding year for the Nets.