A league source who spoke to Brian Lewis of The New York Post (subscription required) observed that the Nets‘ decision to officially finalize deals with Day’Ron Sharpe and Ziaire Williams suggests there are no more major trades on tap for Brooklyn this offseason.
“There’s no big move coming,” the source said.
As Lewis writes, while a “big” deal (ie. one that lands the Nets a first-round pick, like the Michael Porter Jr./Cameron Johnson trade) may not be coming, that doesn’t mean a smaller salary-dump isn’t in the works. As we detailed earlier today, Brooklyn is still operating below the minimum salary floor, so the team has plenty of incentive to take on some additional salary before the regular season tips off.
While the Nets are currently only $649K below the minimum floor, that number could increase to $7MMish if the team waives three players on non-guaranteed minimum-salary contracts in order to set its 15-man regular season roster. After reaching the salary floor, Brooklyn would still have roughly $15.5MM in cap room left over.
“They need to spend about $7 million before the start of the season,” one league source told Lewis. “They’re going to get to the floor and roll over the rest (of their cap room) into the season.”
Here’s more on the Nets:
- Within that same story, Lewis says that Ricky Council IV‘s contract with Brooklyn – which is not yet official – will be partially guaranteed. While player agents sometimes refer to Exhibit 10 contracts that include $85,300 bonuses as “partially guaranteed,” it doesn’t sound like that’s what Lewis means in this case. He adds that Council seems “highly unlikely” to be waived before the start of the season.
- Lewis views Chinese forward Fanbo Zeng as the top candidate to fill the Nets’ final two-way contract slot alongside Tyson Etienne and E.J. Liddell.
- The slight pay bumps that Sharpe and Williams received from the Nets represent a “gesture of goodwill after they waited for their deals to be finalized,” writes C.J. Holmes for The New York Daily News (subscription required). Both Sharpe and Williams agreed to two-year, $12MM deals with Brooklyn at the end of June; after waiting more than two months to officially sign, each player instead received $12.5MM. Only the first year of each deal is guaranteed, so Sharpe and Williams will earn an extra $250K apiece in 2025/26, with the opportunity to earn an extra $250K apiece if their $6.25MM team options for ’27/28 are exercised.