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With March Madness starting, Nets fans are going to be watching a lot of basketball on split screen.
One eye on the Nets, and the other on the NCAA Tournament.
One on their team tanking for lottery odds, the other on the potential franchise-changer(s) they hope all this losing buys them.
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Nets fans will be paying special attention to the three stars at the top: Darryn Peterson, Cameron Boozer and AJ Dybantsa.
The Nets came into Friday with the third-worst record in the NBA, and having a 40.1 percent chance of landing one of those coveted top three picks in the draft.
Peterson made his NCAA Tournament debut while Brooklyn was hosting the Knicks on Friday, while Boozer made his Thursday afternoon. Dybantsa put on an all-time performance in BYU’s loss to Texas, looking like a potential No. 1 overall pick.
“He’s going to be a great player. People talk about comparisons to [Kevin Durant], Jayson Tatum, and it does look like it to me,” Nets rookie Egor Dëmin told The Post of his BYU successor. “It’s a lot of midrange, really aggressive driver, slasher, the transition game, physicality, crazy athlete. He’s got everything to be able to play on the highest level.”
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Dybantsa was spectacular, albeit in defeat. He put the full package on display Thursday, attacking the rim, putting on a midrange show, making a couple of questionable decisions against a defense bent on crowding the paint to stop him.
They couldn’t. His 35 points were the most ever by a freshman in an NCAA Tournament debut, with none even topping 30 in an opener since Stephen Curry in 2007.
AJ Dybantsa scored 35 in BYU’s loss to to Texas in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on March 19, 2026. Getty Images
Dybantsa’s 894 points this season are the third-most by a freshman, behind only Chris Jackson’s 965 in 1988-89 and Kevin Durant’s 903 in 2006-07.
On the TNT broadcast, Bruce Pearl and former All-Star forward Jamal Mashburn gushed over the wing.
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“This is the kid I would take with the No. 1 pick in the draft just because of the intangibles. Plus, the other thing you just can’t teach — that size…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/nets-keeping-extra-close-tabs-103000711.html
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Publish date : 2026-03-21 10:30:00
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