While contending NBA teams are tipping off their postseasons, the disappointing Nets already have started their offseason.
General manager Sean Marks has eschewed talking to the media, and the team hasn’t offered any clarity on when he may do so.
But he did invite a group of season-ticket holders from the BK Block — fans from among the Brooklyn Brigade — to the HSS Training Center this week for a Q&A session.
And some of his answers to their questions backed up what The Post has been reporting: Despite the breakup of the ill-fated Big 3, the Nets are firmly convinced top players will still want to come to Brooklyn.
Marks also hinted at possibly adding a pick in the June draft, and underlined the need for player development among other things.
Everything the Nets have said — and far more importantly, everything they’ve done — implies a roster reset for the summer of 2025.
But there are a precious few superstars who could induce them to move up that schedule. Marks’ comments speak to keeping the flexibility to do so.
“I think the great thing about where we are right now are the very different pathways we have,” Marks said, per video shared on X by @BrooklynThree, when asked whether the Nets would wait until 2025 or go big-game hunting before that. “We don’t have to do this. We don’t have to do pathway A, B, or C.
“We can be patient. We can afford that because we do have all the draft assets in the future. We have a ton of those, so it’s being pretty prudent with those. It’s going to be about how our current plans develop, who we want to carry forward with, who we can re-sign of our own guys.”
Re-signing Nic Claxton, an unrestricted free agent, is a top priority. The Nets have every intention of bringing him back, and the young center has said he wants to return.
But what will that Nets team look like? What is Marks’ and team owner Joe Tsai’s grand plan moving forward?
Marks didn’t say specifically the plan calls for taking an immediate run at a star. But he claimed it’s not out of the question.
‘The team is going to attract stars’
When James Harden, Kyrie Irving and finally last-man-standing Kevin Durant requested trades within the span of a year — the Big 3’s failure completed after just 16 regular-season games played together — there was the narrative that the organization had become toxic, so radioactive in NBA circles that top players would avoid Brooklyn.
Marks pushed back on that narrative. The toxic part, not the failure part. That was undeniable.
“We’ve shown the ability to attract stars. I mean, we fell short. I’m going to own that. No question there,” Marks said. “But we’ve been able to attract stars. The market attracts stars, the team is going to attract stars. It’s just a matter of when we do that.
“And there’s also something to be said about — hey, let’s develop our own as well. Let’s not forget that. It’s hard to have one or two stars and you want to make sure players four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and 10 are all part of the team. So they’re developing at the same time. You have the right structure around them.”
When Marks arrived in 2016 and took over the most dire situation in the NBA — one of the most hopeless in modern sport, a 21-61 team with no draft picks — he built the Nets into a playoff squad through player development.
They developed players from castoffs Spencer Dinwiddie and Joe Harris to buy-low reclamations such as D’Angelo Russell to shrewd draft picks such as Jarrett Allen, Caris LeVert and even Claxton.
With no stars currently on the roster and an inexperienced head coach in the soon-to-be-hired Jordi Fernandez, player development will be vital again — whether those players fit around a star or are used as trade bait to land one.
The Nets finished just 32-50, their worst mark since 2017-18, the last season they missed the playoffs. Their progression the next season led directly to adding Durant and Irving in the summer.
‘The opportunity to compete for a championship’
All signs point to the Nets resetting for the summer of 2025, when Ben Simmons’ massive $40 million contract comes off the books. The Nets project to have ample cap space — as much as $70 or $80 million, per former Nets assistant GM Bobby Marks, now an ESPN insider.
But that would require a rebuild.
Would the Nets accelerate the process for the right opportunity?
Obviously should a player such as the Bucks’ Giannis Antetekounmpo become available, they would empty the coffers Marks has so assiduously filled. That would include a raft of draft picks and high-scoring young guard Cam Thomas.
Donovan Mitchell has talked openly about the NBA Finals or Eastern Conference finals being the goal in Cleveland and anything else being a failure. League personnel have told The Post the perception is Mitchell is unlikely to sign an extension with the Cavaliers, which could force them to cash in on their biggest asset via trade while they still can. Is that in the summer? At the trade deadline next season?
“That [Mitchell situation] is very real. Teams will definitely clear out a bunch of [assets] for him. We’ll see,” an executive told The Athletic. “But if they face Boston in the second round, they’ll probably lose. And yeah, that doesn’t bode well [for his future in Cleveland].”
Expect the Nets to be ready to offer Mitchell a new future. An Elmsford native with family and a home in the area, as well as friends on the Nets’ roster, he could well be the perfect fit.
And after the disastrous end to the Big 3 — and the legion of issues the Nets had with Irving while he was here — they should’ve learned the importance of fit.
“We have to make sure, whether it’s a star player or so forth, that they’re a fit for us to have sustainable success, have the opportunity to compete for a championship,” Marks said. “…Our goal has never wavered from that, being the first team from Brooklyn to win a championship. … Our ownership, Joe, has never wavered from putting all resources behind the team. To me, that makes me feel really good.”
‘We don’t have a pick this year — yet’
Tsai’s first test this summer will be to ante up for Claxton.
While he and Marks will be hell-bent on staying out of the luxury tax and resetting the repeater tax, retaining Claxton is a priority and a likelihood.
The Nets also hold four trade exceptions, the largest for a massive $20.4 million, and are expected to have the $12.9 million non-taxpayer Midlevel Exception to use.
Despite not having a first-round draft pick in June, the Nets have seven tradeable first-round picks over the next seven years, the fifth-most of any team. The Suns picks in 2027 and 2029 — along with the Mavericks’ 2029 selection — are among the most valuable traded picks in the league.
They also have 11 second-round picks available in that span. None are this year, but that could change.
“We don’t have a pick this year — yet,” Marks said, with a pregnant pause for effect. “The draft to me is very systematic. You don’t look at the pick. It does me no good to say, ‘We’ve got the sixth pick in the draft and there’s only five players you want.’ It’s more about where that pick is. You’ve seen us: We always take the best available. It doesn’t matter what position.
“What I don’t want to do is look back in three years and say we took a point guard because we already had a power forward and the best player available is a power forward and power forward is an All-Star and the point guard is not. You always take the best available, unless you have multiple picks right in that range, then you can get more creative, but I think you take the best available and you figure it out.”
