NBA Lottery: Why Brooklyn Nets Don't Have a First-Round Pick

The NBA Draft Lottery is Sunday afternoon, which will see a team win the event, earning the No. 1 overall pick in the draft. The Brooklyn Nets won't be involved, though, despite posting a 32-50 record during the 2023-24 NBA season.

Holding the No. 11 seed in the Eastern Conference has the Nets' 2024 first-round pick in the lottery, but the team will have no representative there because they don't own their first-round pick. Instead, the Houston Rockets will receive the Nets' pick no matter where it lands on Sunday afternoon.

Now, the lottery is positive for franchises who jump or earn a high pick. Teams who fall are respectively disappointed. Still, both know where their pick lands and the teams can then begin doing deep draft work and building a big board. The Nets won't be able to take part in this on Sunday.

The Rockets receive the pick because of a trade made in 2021, which teamed James Harden up with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving -- building what was supposed to be a super team. The trio played just 16 total games together, posting a 13-3 record in those games. They weren't healthy in the postseason, and rarely healthy in the regular season.

Had the trio been able to play a substantial amount of games together, there might have been a different result. Still, Harden was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers for Ben Simmons and some filler players. The team invested their future draft picks to acquire Harden, just for him to swiftly force his way out of Brooklyn. They traded Houston three first-round draft picks (2022, 2024, and 2026) and four first-round pick swaps (2021, 2023, 2025, and 2027). So, when the Nets pick is called during the 2024 NBA Draft Lottery, the Rockets will know where the pick stands for them to make the call during draft night.

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