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The trade the Brooklyn Nets made to acquire the #22 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, which they used to select Drake Powell, was a smart move. In addition to Powell, the Nets received Terance Mann in the deal, or more accurately, they relieved the Atlanta Hawks of his contract.
Mann is owed roughly $32 million over the next two seasons, positioned as a salary-matching trade chip for whatever deal Sean Marks elects to make in the intermediate future to improve the roster. As it stands, Nic Claxton is the only other player on the roster owed between $8-$35 million moving forward. Combine Mann and Claxton and that’s around $38 million in tradable salary for two players whose contracts expire in two seasons. If Marks isn’t keen on making a big splash in this summer’s trade market, there’s always 2027, when Mann/Claxton will be on expiring deals. Also, people seem to really like T-Mann.
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Among the many complaints about Brooklyn’s 2025 draft class, redundancy was frequently mentioned. By putting so many ball-handlers on the same timeline, in the same development context, their individual opportunities for growth will be limited, the thinking went.
I would argue not only that this complaint was slightly overblown, but that Powell doesn’t fit into this conundrum. If regular-season lineups with, say, Nolan Traore, Egor Dëmin, and Drake Powell don’t work, it won’t be because of harmful overlap.
All told, I liked Brooklyn buying the #22 pick for the price of Mann’s contract, which should come in handy soon enough. Separately, Drake Powell had a disappointing rookie season. He played 63 games with Brooklyn and a handful more for the G League’s Long Island Nets — on the NBA side, he averaged 7/2/1 on a commendable 53% shooting from two, a worrisome 28% from deep, and 89.6% from the line.
He took just 77 total free-throws, but the percentage really exemplifies the sell for Powell: a plus-athlete with real touch, skills that make him playable will he expands the rest of his game. Nets fans can attest that it felt like every single middy or floater Powell took before the calendar flipped to…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/drake-powell-season-analysis-brooklyn-092925778.html
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Publish date : 2026-05-01 09:29:00
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