Nets Projected to Avoid Worst Record in Eastern Conference

The Brooklyn Nets are set to be one of the worst teams in the league, but they might still play better than some of their rivals in the tank race.

Next season, Brooklyn will be in a battle with a handful of other teams for the top odds in the draft lottery. After a 2024-25 season where Brooklyn overachieved just enough to taint its lottery odds, the franchise appears to be all-in on being all-out next season.

Considering Brooklyn doesn’t have its 2027 first-round pick, this presents the last chance for Brooklyn to easily obtain one of the top picks in the draft for a couple of years. Considering Brooklyn could be in for a lengthy rebuild, finding its franchise player next summer could be the key to a successful future.

In ESPN’s projections for next season, Kevin Pelton’s model predicted the win totals for each team in the league. While the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder topped the list with 59.2 projected wins and the Cleveland Cavaliers narrowly earned the East’s only 50-win projection at 50.1 wins, the Nets are sitting near the bottom.

Brooklyn is projected to win only 17.6 games in 2025-26. For reference, the West-worst Utah Jazz are expected to win 20.2 games despite being in a similar spot and having a much tougher schedule.

“Given the number of rookies on the roster, I expected Brooklyn to have the league's worst projection,” Pelton wrote. “The Nets also have just two players who rate better than league average. Still, there's enough talent with the additions of Haywood Highsmith, Terance Mann and Michael Porter Jr. in salary dumps to keep Brooklyn competitive to start the season.”

While it appears everything is going against the Nets in terms of getting wins over the next several months, they still aren’t projected to be the worst team in basketball. That title belongs to the Washington Wizards, who Pelton’s model gave only 14.2 wins.

Considering how far below the rest of the competition those two teams are, the season series between the Nets and Wizards could be the most significant factor in deciding which squad “earns” the best lottery odds. Those games won’t be pretty, but they should be important.

In any case, there isn’t much optimism for Brooklyn this season, but the Nets’ vets might be just good enough to keep them from taking the 30th spot in the league standings.