Season Wrap: The 2024-25 Brooklyn Nets

  • By Keston Paul

    Last Updated on May 29, 2025 12:24 pm by Keston Paul | Published: May 29, 2025

    In the offseason, the Nets traded Mikal Bridges, Keita Bates-Diop, a 2026 second-round pick and the draft rights of Pablo Vaulet to the Knicks for Bojan Bogdanovic (who was injured and waived halfway through the season), Mamadi Diakite, Shake Milton, four unprotected first-round picks in 2025, 2027, 2029 and 2031, an unprotected first-round pick swap in 2028, a top-four protected Bucks first-rounder in 2025 and a 2025 second-round pick. Quite a haul.

    That deal coincided with Nets regaining control of their own 2025 and 2026 first-round picks from the Rockets while sending them control of the Suns’ first-rounder in 2025 (a pick swap), the Suns’ 2027 first-round pick plus the rights to the two most favorable of a Dallas, Suns or Rockets pick in 2029. In simpler terms, the Nets gave the Rockets four picks (since we know in hindsight that the 2025 Suns pick swap was valuable) to get back their own picks.

    That gave the Nets a clear incentive to tank and add young talent to a depleted roster with control of its own assets, but new head coach Jordi Fernández was not in the business of losing for losing’s sake.

    How’d It Go?

    Many touted the Nets to be the worst team in the league after the trades outlined above. On paper, it made sense because the roster sorely lacked offensive firepower outside of Cam Thomas and Cam Johnson, neither of whom was seriously viewed as a No. 1 option, and they weren’t exactly looking like defensive juggernauts either. Obviously, they secured their own picks with the 2025 NBA Draft in mind so the sentiment made sense.

    The Nets’ 26-56 record represented an exceeding of expectations. However, it likely isn’t something to be fully happy about. At certain points of the season, the Nets were flirting with a Play-In spot in the East. In fact, they were so good early on that it felt like the Dennis Schroder trade to the Warriors was simply the Nets front office telling good ‘ol Jordi, “We are taking away your only competent point guard so you don’t ruin our lottery chances.” They did get D’Angelo Russell from the Lakers soon after but Russell forgot how to shoot so it was not as damaging as it could have been. Maybe they should have put his name in some trade rumors (if you know, you know).

    They went into the lottery with the No. 6 odds at 9.0% and technically speaking, that still provides a strong chance with the flattened odds. However, if “almost everyone” has a chance at rising, you get instances of two teams below you (the Spurs and Mavs) jumping ahead with your rebuilding franchise now picking at No. 8 with a reduced chance of drafting a superstar. They also have the No. 19 pick via the Bucks, the No. 26 and No. 27 picks via the Knicks and Rockets respectively, as well as the No. 36 pick so they are not short of 2025 draft capital to maybe either trade up or take multiple swings.

    Coaching

    The 42-year-old Spanish-born Jordi Fernández was officially announced as a first-time NBA head coach on April 22, 2024 and is the 25th head coach in Nets franchise history. He was an assistant coach with the Denver Nuggets from 2016 to 2022 and then an assistant for the Sacramento Kings from 2022 to 2024. His earliest NBA stint was from 2009 to 2013 for the Cleveland Cavaliers as a player development coach. He was also the head coach of the Canadian national team when they won bronze in the 2023 FIBA World Cup and finished fifth during the 2024 Olympics. His coaching tree is much broader than that but those are the most noteworthy in terms of top-level experience.

    The Nets finished the regular season with an offensive rating of 108.1 (28th), a defensive rating of 115.4 (23rd) and an overall net rating of -7.3 (26th). For this team, I want to delve deeper so we should note that their assist percentage of 66.9 was ninth-best among all teams, and their pace (96.73) ranked 28th overall. The Nets led the league with 8.8 handoff possessions per game while their pick-and-roll frequency was among the lowest. Essentially Fernández established a team-oriented style of basketball that utilized movement off screens or handoffs which is likely why their assist percentage was so high. If you do not have the individual talent to break down defenses, you let ball movement and player movement do the work. They did suffer some bad losses but perhaps the most stunning example of this team not looking like a tanking franchise was their 99-97 comeback victory vs. the Rockets on February 4, thanks to 3-pointers in the final 10 seconds by Keon Johnson and D’Angelo Russell.

    Fernández seems like an intelligent and creative head coach and it would be interesting to see what he could do with a much more talented roster. The effort and results that he squeezed out of this team at times was impressive for his debut season in the NBA.

    The Players

    Cameron Johnson
    PF, Brooklyn Nets
    SeasonTeamGPGSMPG FGMFGAFG% FTMFTAFT% 3PTM3PTA3PT% PTSREBAST STLBLKTO
    24-25 BKN 57 57 31.6 6.2 13.1 47.5 3.5 3.9 89.3 2.8 7.2 39.0 18.8 4.3 3.4 0.9 0.4 1.7
    23-24 BKN 58 47 27.6 4.8 10.7 44.6 1.5 1.9 78.9 2.4 6.1 39.1 13.4 4.3 2.4 0.8 0.3 1.0
    22-23 BKN 42 41 28.6 5.3 11.3 47.0 2.4 2.9 84.2 2.5 6.1 40.4 15.5 4.4 1.9 1.2 0.3 0.9

    ADP: 123.3/136.2 (Yahoo/ESPN) | Total Value: 79/73 (8/9-cat) | Per-Game Value: 63/52 (8/9-cat)

    Johnson finished 2024-25 with career-high averages in points, threes, assists, FG% and FT% with a joint-career-high in blocks. After a disappointing 2023-24 season where Johnson often went in the middle rounds due to a strong finish to 2022-23 after his trade to the Nets, Johnson fell in drafts this season. His prior injury history did not do him any favors either. This year, we got a decent number of games from him and the final seven games Johnson missed from March 31 to April 13 with a low back contusion might have been “generous” toward the Nets’ lottery hopes, but the team didn’t fully lean into a tank as heavily as other franchises. Johnson spent time on the sidelines with a few injury stints but always came back to play and even stayed with the Nets through the trade deadline amid swirling rumors.

    The 31.6 MPG were the most of his career and a usage rate of 22.5% was the second-most of his career. Johnson will certainly have suitors on the trade market in the offseason as the elite 3-and-D addition many contenders are looking for, on top of the ability to “scale up” as he showed this season. The usage would not be as significant on a contender but it seems likely that he would command enough of a role to still provide solid points and threes with okay rebounds and maybe a couple of assists. Maybe the steals would rise back up with more energy to expend on defense as well. If he stays in Brooklyn, then the role should remain large enough for solid fantasy appeal again.

    Cam Thomas
    SG, Brooklyn Nets
    SeasonTeamGPGSMPG FGMFGAFG% FTMFTAFT% 3PTM3PTA3PT% PTSREBAST STLBLKTO
    24-25 BKN 25 23 31.2 8.0 18.2 43.8 5.3 6.0 88.1 2.7 7.8 34.9 24.0 3.3 3.8 0.6 0.1 2.5
    23-24 BKN 66 51 31.3 8.0 18.0 44.2 4.3 5.1 85.6 2.2 6.0 36.4 22.5 3.2 2.9 0.7 0.2 1.9
    22-23 BKN 57 4 16.6 3.5 8.0 44.1 2.6 3.1 86.8 0.9 2.3 38.3 10.6 1.6 1.4 0.4 0.1 1.1

    ADP: 70.4/70.4 (Yahoo/ESPN) | Total Value: 292/304 (8/9-cat) | Per-Game Value: 90/113 (8/9-cat)

    A troublesome left hamstring cost Thomas significant time throughout the season. The first was a 13-game absence from November 27 to December 27. Thomas played two of the next three games (one being an injury-management absence) then he strained his left hamstring again, missing 24 games from January 4 to February 26. He then played six of the next eight games (two injury-management absences) and then a third left hamstring strain caused him to miss the final 16 games of the season from March 15 to April 13. That means that 53 of Thomas’ 57 missed games were due to his hamstring plus another three were due to injury management for the issue. Repeated injuries to the same area can be concerning but I would not worry about it for Thomas unless this becomes a yearly issue, as he likely just did not have adequate healing after the first occurrence.

    As for the positives, Thomas had career-high averages in points, threes, rebounds, assists and FT% with a usage rate of 32.1%. Drafting Thomas top-70 in fantasy drafts was a little aggressive but punting both FG% and turnovers would have put him in the top-65 range per game, so he was “technically successful” from a per-game perspective without the injuries that we could not have accounted for.

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    May 29, 2025, 12:24 pm