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The Brooklyn Nets are in the middle of a rebuild now that they have traded Mikal Bridges to the New York Knicks in exchange for three players and as many as five first-round picks. Brooklyn is currently partaking in the Las Vegas Summer League and as such, general manager Sean Marks stopped by on the ESPN broadcast on Sunday to answer some questions about the rebuild.
“When you move somebody like Mikal, those decisions aren’t quite as simple as maybe they appear to be,” Marks said on the broadcast when asked about the process of the team as it heads through this rebuild. At one point, the Nets were one of the many teams hoping to land a star player either in free-agency or through a trade, but they ended up pivoting to a rebuild in the hopes of drafting their next superstar.
“Obviously, we thank Mikal for his time here,” Marks said. “But, it fits us better for our timeline and how we’re going to build sustainably and hopefully keep a lot of flexibility over these next couple of years here.”
Prior to trading Bridges to the Knicks, the Nets were in a tough spot as they missed the entire postseason last season with Bridges being the primary scoring option despite a breakout year from Cam Thomas. It became clear that Brooklyn needed to add more talent to the team if they wanted to make it back to the postseason.
However, at this very moment, the focus is on the younger players on the roster with the summer league in action right now. “Looking at some of the young guys out on the court now and adding them to our roster and building through the draft for a while,” Mark said as part of his explanation of how the near future looks for the Nets as a franchise.