ANALYSIS: How do the young Brooklyn Nets stack up? How’s development going? - NetsDaily

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In his day job, ProfessorB is an award-winning social scientist and Presidential Laureate. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, and other major media outlets. But he also dabbles in NetsWorld.

The Brooklyn Nets are stranded between battling for a play-off spot (1.5 games out of the 10th spot in the East!) and battling for lottery balls (3.5 games better than the fifth worst record in the league!). Sean Marks says they’re “competing,” but also that “some of the decisions we make … may not always be in line with winning the next game or putting the most talent out there.”

One way to parse that apparent contradiction is to suppose that one of the team’s main goals for the season is to develop and assess the stable of young players on the current roster. Playing these guys may not always contribute directly to winning, but could contribute to the “long-term sustainable success” the team is aiming for, regardless of where the ping pong balls land in May.

How does the Nets’ contingent of young talent stack up against the rest of the NBA? The picture is mixed ... at best.

So far this season, 147 guys under the age of 25 have played 300 NBA minutes—enough to get at least a rough handle on their performance. The youngest is Hornets rookie Tidjane Salaün, who turned 19 last August. Among the oldest is Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton, who will turn 25 at the end of this month. The Nets have more than their share of those young players—Jalen Wilson, Keon Johnson, Ziaire Williams, Noah Clowney, Cam Thomas, Day’Ron Sharpe, Tosan Evbuomwan, and Trendon Watford. (Nic Claxton and Tyrese Martin are almost 26, and the other young players on the Nets roster have played less than 300 minutes.)

Perhaps the best single measure of overall NBA performance is EPM rating, which combines a plus-minus rating adjusted for the quality of teammates and opponents on each possession with a weighted combination of box score stats. The EPM ratings of the 147 players considered here range from +5.4 (for the Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama, 3rd in the league behind Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokić) to −6.5 (for Jazz rookie Cody Williams, currently dead last in the NBA).

Thomas is the highest-rated young Net by this measure, ranking 19th among the league’s under-25 players and 71st overall. Two more Nets, Sharpe and Watford, have EPM ratings ranking them among the top one-third of young NBA talent, while Williams and Evbuomwan rank in the middle third and Clowney, Johnson, and Wilson in the bottom third.

Of course, it is not uncommon for young players to improve with age and experience. Even among players under the age of 25, those who are older and have played more tend to have significantly higher EPM ratings. (Interestingly, differences in ratings are much more strongly related to NBA experience than to age. An additional 1,000 minutes on the court is associated with a 0.4 increase in expected EPM rating—more than a three-year age difference.) Thus, an assessment of performance aimed at long-term potential should statistically adjust for these differences.

The Nets are one of the league’s older young teams, with only Clowney under the age of 22. After adjusting the EPM ratings for experience and age, Thomas remains the highest-rated Net but slips slightly (to 24th) in the league ranking. On the other hand, Sharpe, who has played only half as many NBA minutes, rises slightly (to 36th). Both remain among the top one-third of players under the age of 25. The least experienced players on the team, Evbuomwan and Clowney, rank in the middle third along with Watford and Williams.

The league’s highest adjusted EPM rating, by far, belongs to Wembanyama. The rest of the top ten are Dereck Lively, Ausar Thompson, Chet Holmgren, Amen Thompson, Evan Mobley, Franz Wagner, Zach Edey, Jalen Williams, and Cade Cunningham. Some of the older and more experienced players with top-ten EPM ratings in the under-25 group—Tyrese Maxey, Zion Williamson, LaMelo Ball, and Anthony Edwards—drop down the rankings once the ratings are adjusted for experience and age.

Simply totaling each team’s positive adjusted EPM ratings provides some sense of where to look for the NBA’s future powerhouse teams: the Spurs (7.1, mostly thanks to Wemby), Grizzlies (5.9), Thunder (5.6), Rockets (5.3), and Pistons (5.1). The Nets, at 1.1 (Thomas and Sharpe), are far down the list — not an encouraging spot for a rebuilding team.

The Nets’ cupboard of young talent looks even more bare if we turn to an alternative measure of overall performance based entirely on box score stats, BPM, Box Plus/Minus. After adjusting for experience and age, only Sharpe (32nd) and Thomas (43rd) rank among the top half of the league’s young players in BPM ratings, while Watford, Williams, Evbuomwan, Johnson, and Wilson all rank in the bottom quarter.

With four first-round draft picks and a lot of cap space, the Nets’ roster is likely to change significantly next summer. Thomas, Sharpe, and Williams will be restricted free agents, and Watford an unrestricted free agent. How much does the team want to invest in them?

Clowney will continue on his rookie contract and Evbuomwan on his two-way deal (unless he is promoted to a standard roster spot). Johnson and Wilson seem to be most clearly on the bubble, both in terms of performance (ranking in the bottom third of young NBA players by every measure considered here) and in terms of contract status (both have team options for next season and little or no guaranteed salary).

Whatever else happens on the court in the next couple of months, all these young Nets will be scrambling to prove that they can contribute to winning basketball, whether that turns out to be in Brooklyn or elsewhere. And fans will be hoping that the summer brings a major infusion of additional talent, whether through the draft, free agency, or trades.