Nets Should Consider Trading Up After 2025 NBA Draft Lottery

Brooklyn was one of the losers from lottery night, which puts the team in a position to trade up.

May 12, 2025; Chicago, Illinois, US; NBA Commissioner Adam Silver walk through the audience during the 2025 NBA Draft Lottery at McCormick Place. Mandatory Credit: David Banks-Imagn Images / David Banks-Imagn Images

The 2025 NBA Draft Lottery did not go as expected. The best way to describe it was, 'the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.' While it was expected that one of the bottom six or seven teams in the league would land Cooper Flagg at No. 1, that wasn't the case.

None of those teams gets to pick Flagg, or even have a consolation prize at No. 2. The Dallas Mavericks, a team with a 1.8% chance of winning the lottery, have the No. 1 pick in the draft. To make matters worse, the San Antonio Spurs, who were eighth in odds, moved up to No. 2.

The 2025 #NBADraftLottery presented by State Farm Results! pic.twitter.com/rk5R8IVurT

— NBA (@NBA) May 12, 2025

The Brooklyn Nets were one of the teams that got gazumped in the lottery. They move down two spots and have the No. 8 pick, far from the expectation. With no real franchise player in Brooklyn, it looks like the Nets might have to wait on it this year unless they strike gold in the mid-lottery.

Which opens up the possibility for the Nets, along with other teams that got screwed, to trade their picks. They were expecting to land a top-five pick, only to get pushed back for teams that just missed or got eliminated in the Play-In Tournament.

Fischer says Nets could look to trade up and will be aggressive with Giannis pic.twitter.com/Cv1LVnSDqG

— BKN 85 (@brooklynnets85) May 13, 2025

Brooklyn needs to seriously entertain the idea of trading up, considering multiple factors. The first is that the team doesn't have a piece to build a playoff team around. The Nets haven't had that for two and a half seasons, and while Cam Thomas is an elite scorer, he doesn't impact any other parts of the game, especially winning.

The second reason is the amount of draft capital Brooklyn has. Trading Mikal Bridges for a boatload of first-round picks could result in a calculated move from Sean Marks and company. The 2025 class is widely regarded as one of the better pools of talent in recent memory.

Sure, the Nets could settle at No. 8 and hope that their pick turns out to be 'the guy,' but why not at least attempt to move up and get a star like Dylan Harper, Ace Bailey, or even Flagg? There's no guarantee that the top three teams won't be entertaining offers, considering they're playoff contenders when healthy.

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