If the critics are to be believed, the Brooklyn Nets are on the fast track toward a lottery pick in 2025. Brooklyn shipped Mikal Bridges to the New York Knicks for a purely long-term return, and have thus far been inactive as far as short-term upgrades are concerned.
Amid the doom and gloom that is pre-season speculation, however, the Nets are less than a year away from what could be an entirely new era.
Brooklyn has spent the 2024 offseason positioning itself to rebuild as soon as 2025. That doesn't necessarily mean that the Nets will become contenders in 2025-26, but the cloud of poor decision-making has quietly been lifted—and it's beginning to show.
Assuming the Nets renounce the cap hold that will exist for Ben Simmons in 2025, they will have the most cap space of any team in the NBA next offseason, per Keith Smith of Spotrac.
Updated 2025 NBA cap space projections:
— Keith Smith (@KeithSmithNBA) August 8, 2024
1. Nets: $38.7M
2. Rockets: $30.6M
3. Wizards: $25.8M
4. Spurs: $23.2M
The Jazz now project to be over the cap after the Markkanen extension.
Obviously, a lot will change in the next 11 months, but 2025 doesn't look be a big FA summer.
That doesn't necessarily mean that the Nets will acquire the right players, but it's a promising sign that they'll have an opportunity to do so.
Brooklyn Nets on pace to have most cap space in the NBA in 2025
Simmons entering the final season of his massive deal has changed everything for the Nets' outlook. He's owed $40,338,144 in 2024-25 and carries a $52.4 million cap hold for next summer, but the latter figure can be renounced and thus completely transform Brooklyn's flexibility.
Bojan Bogdanovic and Dennis Schröder will also become free agents next summer—along with their $32,058,100 combined salaries and $45.4 collective cap holds.
Furthermore, Dorian Finney-Smith has a $15,378,480 player option that he could decline if there's more money to be made in free agency. In other words: Four of the six most expensive players on the roster could be coming off the books as soon as next summer.
That would create space for Cam Thomas and Ziaire Williams to potentially re-sign as restricted free agents, which sets the tone for the summer of 2025: An opportunity to consider a variety of options.
Brooklyn will be in a position to do what it wants to do. Nic Claxton and Cameron Johnson combine to make $52,034,086 this season and $47,707,012 in 2025-26 with backloaded contracts, and no other player is guaranteed to secure more than a projected $3,398,640 in 2025-26, pending Finney-Smith’s player option.
Compounded by the fact that the Nets will have four first-round draft picks in 2025, Sean Marks could begin a remarkable rebuild as soon as next summer.
Perhaps Marks will return to how he first found success in Brooklyn by going all-in on a youth movement with a young and promising coach in Jordi Fernández leading the charge. Maybe he’s learned enough from his failed big three to take a more methodical approach to star chasing, and will use the cap space and draft picks to pair two stars in 2025 instead of the apron-eradicating three.
No matter what Marks chooses to do, he will have options—something the Nets haven’t been able to say in quite some time.