MILWAUKEE — Nets general manager Sean Marks craves nothing more than flexibility — the ability to pivot when needed and pounce when necessary.
Already armed with the most draft capital in the NBA — and the potential to add even more should it trade Cam Johnson — Brooklyn is in position to take a big swing and jump-start a rebuild.
Whether that’s at the trade deadline with Sacramento’s De’Aaron Fox or with any other star who becomes available.
“You have to be poised and position yourself to be able to have that opportunity,” Marks told The Post. “We’re going to give ourselves the best chance to do that. Now, on whom and when, that’s TBD. But when we took over [in 2016], it was three or four seasons before we were able to say, ‘Hey, we’ve all of a sudden got a team that’s now able to contend. It’s a playoff team.’
“And next year, you’re attracting a different caliber player … or players. So we know we’ve done it. We did it before. Now to be able to do it in this new CBA and hopefully reach that ultimate goal, we fell short. We didn’t come close. So the goal now is to be able to do it again, build it up and try and have another hit at it.”
Many Nets fans are still scarred by the implosion of the Big Three.
But Brooklyn dove into a rebuild.
And after trading not just Mikal Bridges in the summer but Dennis Schroder and now Dorian Finney-Smith, the Nets have a league-high 31 picks, including an NBA-best 15 first-rounders.
They’ll have four in June’s exceptionally deep draft.
It’s a far cry from when Marks took over in 2016 with no picks and had to take salary dumps.
“When we started out here eight years ago, the hand we were dealt, we were handcuffed. There was only a couple … really one way of building, whereas now we’ve got a few more,” Marks told The Post. “We’ve got these draft assets that you can obviously pick them, you can trade them, you can move them around. We’ve got the room. And ultimately, we’ve got two things: We’ve got a market that’s going to be attractive, and we’ve got Joe [Tsai] as an owner that’s proved that at the right time, he’ll go all-in, and he’s not afraid to say it and do it.
“In this CBA, that speaks volumes. When there’s a lot of other places that are like, ‘Oh my gosh, the penalties! How do I get out of this thing?’ But the ultimate goal here is at some point to be able to say, ‘Hey, we’re contending for a championship.’ That’s what every team wants to be able to build up to do that. And hopefully with the flexibility that we’ve got and we’ll have an opportunity to do that at some point. When that is, I couldn’t answer.”
The room is up to $70 million in cap space.
They could use it not only to sign free agents but make trades, as well.
Fox, whom Jordi Fernandez coached in Sacramento, reportedly wants out.
But The Athletic also reported that Johnson is a “priority” for the Kings.
Finney-Smith fetched not just D’Angelo Russell and Max Lewis (who had an MRI in New York on Thursday) but three second-round picks.
Johnson would fetch more.
Of course, moving all these veterans makes Fernandez’s job a little tougher today to make it a lot easier tomorrow, as the lottery odds get better.
“Those in the know and those in our Nets family understand we’re building this and we’re building this for hopefully sustainable success,” Marks told The Post. “That’s what we want. We want to get it to that. We’re going to have to be systematic with some of the decisions we make. And they may not always be in line with winning the next game or putting the most talent out there.
“I mean, we just traded a couple of really good players, and now, we’ve got D’Lo in return and Max in return, so that’s great. But we’re also moving some talent out here and we’re missing continuity, right? Great teams or teams that are able to overachieve have been together for a while and they’re able to find continuity. And I’m not really helping the coaches in that regard, if you’ve got to be honest.”
But he hopes to help them in the long run.
