Egor Demin Flashing Sharpshooter Potential in Surprise Summer League Role

Remember, during the pre-draft process, all anyone would say about Egor Demin was that he was the best passer in the 2025 class but lacked the ability to shoot the three at a high level?

Well, that take couldn't really have aged worse. While Demin hasn't yet received enough reps at point guard to display his elite distributing ability, he has shot 43% from beyond the arc for the Brooklyn Nets at the NBA2K26 Summer League in Las Vegas.

Suddenly, Demin is drawing much different comparisons from the media. Before summer league, names like Josh Giddey, Shaun Livingston and Deni Avdija were the ones associated with Demin.

Now, CBS Sports is saying the 19-year-old is showing shades of Klay Thompson.

"Demin is a demon when it comes to vision, processing speed and overall feel for the game, so the idea of him turning into a deadeye shooter is tantalizing," James Herbert wrote on Thursday. "If his pull-up jumper becomes enough of a threat that defenses have to guard his pick-and-rolls aggressively, it will amplify his passing."

Maybe the media and analysts just chose to be blind to Demin's ability, because the Nets have been excited about the BYU product's shot ever since they drafted him.

Back on July 1, Brooklyn head coach Jordi Fernandez declared the following:

"His ability to shoot the ball [attracted us]. He’s gonna shoot the ball very well in this league. That is another thing that excites us," Fernandez said via ClutchPoints' Erik Slater.

As Herber points out in his piece, the 43% hit-rate could be slightly misleading due to a small sample size. That said, pre-draft scouting reports made Demin out to be completely incompetent from beyond the arc. Take Kevin O'Connor's evaluation, for example.

"There aren’t many indicators that inspire optimism in his shot. He made only 69.5% of his free throws and doesn’t have soft touch on tough layups or floaters. He made only 27.3% of his dribble-jumper 2s, 23.9% of his dribble-jumper 3s, and 27.3% of his catch-and-shoot 3s, per Synergy," O'Connor wrote on June 26. "Additionally, with stiff mechanics and a shaky ability to create his own shot against pressure, he clearly has quite a long way to go."

In reality, Demin is probably somewhere in the middle. He likely got hot in Vegas, and may cool down, but the performances are extremely encouraging given where many expected Demin's shot to be immediately following draft night.