Jalen Wilson and Noah Clowney Reflect on Wrapping up Their Rookie Years

The transition from the NCAA to the NBA is not easy, but players from that level find their way into the league time and time again. Playing professionally before arriving in the association certainly helps as well, so it's difficult to choose which of the two prepares players for the NBA more.

At the nucleus of it all, every year it becomes time for executives around the NBA to draft the players they want to build with. In the 2023 NBA Draft, all three of the players the Nets drafted took the college route. These players were none other than Jalen Wilson, Noah Clowney, and Dariq Whitehead.

In an exclusive interview with the Brooklyn Nets' media team, Wilson sat down to reflect on his first year.

"I think when you say 82 games like you don't really realize 82 games," said the Nets forward when pointing out one of the differences between college and the NBA. "College, you're lucky to play like 30-35 games. You're lucky, those are the teams that go on and play March Madness and stuff like that. Being able to play like almost every single other day is cool."

Despite becoming a Net during the second half of the season, Brooklyn's starting point guard raved about Wilson in his short time with him so far as his teammate.

"J Will does a lot of things won't show on the stat sheet and impacts winning," said Dennis Schroder. "I like that most about him."

As for Clowney, the Nets' new head coach Jordi Fernandez is excited to work with him, recently commenting on his game.

"Noah [Clowney] had a great end of the season showing what he can do in real NBA minutes and now we have high expectations for him -- Keep getting better because now he's not the same player that he was before,” said the Brooklyn coach.

In terms of the former rookie's future plans,Clowney wants to dedicate most of his offseason to improving at Brooklyn's facilities.

“I'd probably be back in Brooklyn real soon. Spending the majority of my summer here probably. Haven't got the details, but I'm pretty sure this is how it's going to go,” he said.

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