There are mixed reviews about Nets lottery pick Egor Demin after he shot the ball better than expected during Summer League, but didn’t get to show off his play-making skills in a mostly off-the-ball role, writes Brian Lewis of The New York Post. Following his first taste of competition against NBA-level players, the 19-year-old rookie’s takeaway is that he needs to get stronger.
“For me there was a lot of physicality these past couple of weeks, probably even more in the practices with my own teammates where the level of competitiveness is super high — probably even higher than in the games, because everybody wants to make each other better on the practices,” Demin said.
There were questions about Demin’s outside shot following his lone season at BYU, but he connected at 43.5% in Las Vegas on 7.7 attempts per game. However, he was barely used in the pick-and-roll and collected just four assists in Summer League along with nine turnovers. Lewis cites concerns about his lack of athleticism to separate from defenders and weaknesses with his dribble that allow smaller opponents to bother him.
Summer League coach Steve Hetzel also mentioned Demin’s issues with “physicality,” but expressed confidence that he’ll eventually overcome them.
“As a 19-year-old, there’s still a lot of room for his body to just fill out and grow,” Hetzel said. “And you’re going to see a massive change from Year 1 to Year 2 in his strength and how he plays. He has such a good frame, he’s 6-foot-9. So there’s no worry. It’s just everybody has a level of patience for allowing him to grow.”
There’s more from Brooklyn:
- The Nets’ other first-round picks had flashes of success in Las Vegas, Lewis adds in a separate story. Nolan Traore displayed a strong first step and an ability to get by defenders, but he didn’t finish well at the rim. Ben Saraf showed a good understanding of the game and has the size to fit in at the wing, but he didn’t ease any of the concerns about his jumper. Danny Wolf got off to a rough start, but eventually showed off his passing skills and his ability to stretch defenses. Drake Powell, the team’s other first-round pick, didn’t participate in Summer League due to a knee injury.
- Kyrie Irving shared his thoughts on the failed experiment in Brooklyn during a recent appearance on the Mind the Game podcast (Twitter link), Lewis relays in another piece. Irving said he regrets not doing more research on the Nets before signing with them in 2019. “I wish I would’ve handled the business better and got a chance to know them first, ask them questions, ‘Hey, what’s the future like?’ Instead of just committing blindly,” he said. “I didn’t have much power going in there. I couldn’t say who we could get and who we could not get. I couldn’t hire the coach. You guys knew my opinion on the head coach at the time.”
- After being acquired in a trade with Denver, Michael Porter Jr. compiled a video blog of his first experiences with the Nets. It includes his impressions of the practice facility and a workout with team trainers.
‘I didn’t have much power going in there. I couldn’t say who we could get and who we could not get. I couldn’t hire the coach.’ – Kyrie.
What an entitled individual. Thinking about having power and influence, not about being a professional.
No wonder many NBA teams are having such a good time with Europeans as their franchise players. They don’t bs around and focus on being basketball players. While these Kyrie-PG-Butler types stir things up, push their teams into bad decisions with ‘need more help’ statements and eye the door at first inconvenience.
Nah bro, your takes are usually solid, but this is just Kyrie saying he wasn’t the one making decisions, it doesn’t really sound like entitlement to me.
Not sure if you opened the linked piece, but I think the full(er) quote is a little more damning.
“Brooklyn, I wish that we got a chance to get to know them beforehand, because they wasn’t f–king with me like that,” Irving said Tuesday night on his Twitch stream. “And that’s just me; that’s my perspective. Now, did they want me on the team? Sure, you could say that. But Kenny Atkinson wasn’t f–king with me like that, bro. They didn’t want me like that. They wanted K. And that’s my vantage point, right? This is the information that I gathered after I left.”
Keep in mind that this is the same team which let Kyrie go MIA when he was on another one of his mood swings, flaunt protocols to go to his sister’s party, and in general put up with his nonsense. You can criticize the Nets for a lot of things back then, but you can’t say they didn’t bend over backwards for the man and he appreciates none of it. That is the opposite of maturity.
@Chucktoad1 Kyrie signed as a free agent with Brooklyn. He didn’t get traded into a bad situation.
He willingly went there. And per his own admission, felt entitled to be involved in coaching appointments and other things.
Considering how things went there in Brooklyn, they did very well to get the returns they got for Kyrie, Harden and KD. All of them returned 1sts. KD returned a whole treasure.
There’s always a caveat with a narcissist like Kyrie. They can’t just leave it at “I wish I could’ve handled my business better” because, ultimately, those are empty words.
This is very off topic (and probably tmi) but my parents went through a bitter divorce, the blame of which I put 95% on my dad who put my mom and I through hell. Initially, he would never take any responsibility for his actions. But years later, he finally took some blame by simplifying things down to “me and your mom both did some things we shouldn’t have”. Yeah, no. That doesn’t cut it in my book. Take responsibility and leave it at that or you aren’t truly taking any responsibility at all.
Kyrie likes to talk about how he has matured and turned a page, but comments like this reveal he really really changed much at all. He’s just smart enough to not say the loud parts out loud anymore.
The Nets are built like an AAU team. Their roster is a mess.
I would say it’s by design, doing this complete teardown to stock draft picks and tank until they have enough assets to be competitive, but they just used their best assets so far to make some head-scratching draft picks for their blank-sheet roster.
I get the whole like “worry about positional fit later” but drafting a whole bunch of ball-handlers isn’t going to allow them each to shine and progress enough for them to become high-value trade assets if they don’t end up working out together in a positional fit. So you got a lopsided group of rookie guards and then some bargain pieces everywhere else.
“video blog” just call it a vlog lol
Kyrie is one of the biggest POS in the NBA, always the team’s fault, never his.