NEW YORK (AP) — When the Brooklyn Nets made their first deal with the local rival New York Knicks in four decades, they traded away their best all-around player in Mikal Bridges.
Bridges was the key piece the Nets acquired when they sent Kevin Durant to Phoenix in 2023, and his brilliant play down the stretch got them into the playoffs that spring.
No key player came back this time. The trade with the Knicks was all about the haul of draft picks the Nets could accumulate for future success.
So, the Nets are heading into a rebuild, but general manager Sean Marks doesn’t think it will be a lengthy one.
“This build, do I think it’s going to take time? I mean, I think we’ll be strategic in it,” Marks said Monday.
“But I do think being in this market, with this amount of draft assets, we’ve done it before. And so again, I think, not that it’s going to be expedited by any means, but I don’t think it’s a long process, either.”
The trade was agreed upon just before the NBA draft last month and completed Saturday. The Nets received the Knicks’ first-round picks in 2025, 2027, 2029 and 2031, the right to swap first-round picks in 2028, a first-round pick from Milwaukee next year and a second-round pick in 2025.
