Thursday's 108-97 loss to the Atlanta Hawks felt like a turning point for the Brooklyn Nets' tanking efforts. With Egor Demin and Day'Ron Sharpe recently shut down for the season, the Nets ruled out Michael Porter Jr. (right ankle sprain), Nolan Traore (rest) and Ziaire Williams (illness) for the matchup.
When that wasn't enough, they took matters into their own hands during the game.
Despite taking an 83-82 lead early in the fourth quarter, the Nets did not play Nic Claxton or Noah Clowney, their top two available players, for the entire final period. They even benched Josh Minott, who posted a season-high 24 points, down the stretch. Brooklyn's closing lineup consisted of two rookies and three two-way players: Tyson Etienne, Ben Saraf, Drake Powell, E.J. Liddell and Chaney Johnson.
As the game progressed, it became evident that the Nets were not going to let themselves win. These are the types of measures they'll need to take if they hope to finish near the top of a historic tank race.
Nets ramp up tanking urgency during tight loss to Hawks
Brooklyn's aggressive tanking maneuvers on Thursday followed back-to-back wins over the Detroit Pistons and Memphis Grizzlies on Saturday and Monday. Nets head coach Jordi Fernandez rode a veteran-heavy rotation to a 23-point comeback in Detroit, playing Michael Porter Jr. 39 minutes and benching rookies Ben Saraf and Traore. Despite the Grizzlies' eight highest-paid players being sidelined on Monday, Brooklyn played most of its rotation and cruised to a 126-115 victory.
However, Thursday's loss indicated a philosophical shift in line with that of other tanking teams. For most of this season, the Washington Wizards, Indiana Pacers, Utah Jazz and others have gone to extreme lengths to maximize their draft lottery odds, and for good reason.
The 2026 draft is among the most talented of the last several decades, with three franchise-altering prospects — Darryn Peterson, A.J. Dybansta and Cam Boozer — at the top.
Those are the types of players the Nets had their eye on when they paid a steep price to reacquire their 2025 and 2026 first-round picks from the Houston Rockets during the 2024 offseason. However, Brooklyn soft tanked last season, finishing with the NBA's sixth-worst record and falling to the eighth pick in the draft, a mistake the rebuilding squad cannot afford to make twice.
Nets owner Joe Tsai admitted this much before the season.
“We have one pick in 2026, and we hope to get a good pick. So you can predict what kind of strategy we will use for this season,” Tsai said.
The Nets still have an opportunity to put themselves in the optimal position to land a top pick. They have only one more win than the Wizards and Sacramento Kings, who sit in second and third in the lottery standings, respectively, and two more than the Pacers, who hold the top spot. Brooklyn's remaining schedule features a pair of matchups with Sacramento and meetings with Indiana and Washington.
Rotations like Thursday's should become commonplace for the Nets over the final month of the season. The potential payoff this summer is well worth it.
