New Lottery Odds Came One Year Too Late for Brooklyn Nets

The Nets may enter next season in a perfect position for the new lottery system, but that won’t benefit Brooklyn.

Over the past few years, the Nets have been among the worst teams in the entire league. After sending out Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving in the 2023 season and getting swept in the first round, things didn’t get much better over the next three seasons.

Winning 32, 26 and 20 games in the years since, Brooklyn has progressively gotten worse each season, but it hasn’t led to its desired results. In this age of the NBA, tanking has become such an important storyline, and the Nets were unable to capitalize on the potential benefits.

Without any lottery luck, the Nets were simply stuck in a position where they had no choice but to keep tanking, but they could never get the ping pong balls to bounce their way. Set to hand over their 2027 first-round pick to the Houston Rockets via a pick swap as part of the 2021 James Harden trade, the Nets set out to make some improvements this offseason.

However, the willingness to build toward winning immediately because of their pick heading to Houston could sting for Brooklyn. With the addition of Julius Randle, the expected development of recent picks and free agent signings such as Keon Ellis and Moe Wagner, the Nets shouldn’t be sitting around the 20-win mark they finished at in 2026.

The reason that may sting for Brooklyn is that this team is built to finish better than the absolute bottom of the league, but it might still be a tier below some of the teams near the bottom of the postseason picture in the East. Of course, that leaves Brooklyn in the ideal finishing range for the new lottery odds, with a pick it doesn’t own.

Considering Brooklyn has full control of its own picks after Houston likely swaps the 2027 pick, the new lottery odds could still come to benefit the Nets. However, if the Nets finish in the ideal range in the 3-2-1 format (outside of the play-in with better than a bottom-three record), there’s a real chance the lottery luck they’ve been searching for will finally come and leave Houston with a young franchise cornerstone who Brooklyn has been desperate for.

While the Nets’ 20 wins last season would’ve penalized them under the new system as the third-worst record in the league, the previous two seasons would’ve been perfect for the new lottery. Said to be ruining their odds by winning too much in the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons, the upcoming format would’ve rewarded a team in Brooklyn’s position instead of having a fun early-season stretch hurt the plan for the season.

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