The question of how deep Brooklyn wants to go in its rebuild is an ownership-level one.
And so far, neither Nets owner Joe Tsai nor general manager Sean Marks has tipped his hand, either publicly or privately.
But agents and league executives who’ve spoken with The Post are reading the tea leaves. And those leaves are showing more of a painful-but-short strategy than the death-by-a-thousand cuts misery the Pistons have been going through.
There are risks down each path.
But the NBA is expecting the Nets to pick the shorter fork. And that’s probably the smarter fork.
Clearly, franchise-altering decisions like that have to be made by the man (or woman) where the buck stops.
The signing of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. The trading of both superstars, Durant for Mikal Bridges and four first-round draft picks.
And now shipping Bridges across the East River for five more first-rounders (and a pick swap) — even if it means watching the rival Knicks compete for a title, if that’s the Nets’ best chance to eventually do the same someday down the road.
The shorter path down that road is to keep going the way they’re going, to use the 16 first-round picks Marks has collected and — after letting the expiring deals of Ben Simmons, Bojan Bogdanovic and Dennis Schroder run out next summer — spend a staggering $80 million in 2025 cap space.
Voila. If not instant improvement, at least the seeds for one.
Or so they hope.
Granted, NBA free agency doesn’t operate like it did five years ago when Brooklyn added Durant and Irving, and the Clippers signed Kawhi Leonard. Superstars just re-sign now for max deals and force their way out later, like Durant.
Houston made a quick jump adding players a notch or three below like Fred VanVleet and Dillon Brooks to their youngsters, and it took just two years.
But the alternative is to repeat Marks’ methods in his first rebuild, ie, trading away those expiring deals for other teams’ salary dumps to garner even more draft assets. The risk there might be even greater: the Nets become Detroit.
After five years of tanking the Pistons lost an NBA record-tying 28 straight games this past season, and could still be terrible again. How quickly can even the most hopeful Washington fans think it’ll take that franchise to turn things around?
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Market matters, and Brooklyn would be unwise not to use every edge next summer.
What Marks does over the next week or so of free agency will paint a clear picture of whatever he and Tsai plan to do. Veterans like Cam Johnson and Dorian Finney-Smith could well be moved, but who they’re moved for — or more to the point, the lengths of the contracts coming back — should be telling.
Despite whatever rumors are floating about, don’t expect the Nets to move Simmons this summer for some long-term bad deal (read: Zach LaVine). And forget reports of a D’Angelo Russell reunion; it’s not likely.
The tank is on. And the rest of the league is expecting it to be the shorter route.
Which might be the savvier route.
It’s impossible to know for certain what free agents will be available (Jimmy Butler could opt out, Donovan Mitchell could extend, etc.). But cap space is also valuable to take players back in trades. And Brooklyn’s cache of picks are valuable to make those deals. They already have 16 first-rounders over the next seven years, and can add to that by moving Johnson or Finney-Smith.
The Nets were only convinced to trade Bridges by a confluence of events: their inability to pair him with an All-Star like Mitchell, and his own desire to leave and join the Knicks. A deep rebuild was never a preference, but a pivot.
The smart pivot would be to keep their eyes on 2025. And that’s what the league is expecting.
