Where do the Nets stand heading into the 2024-25 NBA trade deadline?

Posted by author January 31, 2025 NBA

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The Brooklyn Nets (15-33) are an interesting team to watch heading into the Feb. 6 trade deadline for the 2024-25 NBA season given that they could look completely different in just one week from now. Brooklyn has already made two trades that have earned the team some draft picks and young players, but there is an expectation that they could make even more moves depending on the offers.

As many Nets fans know, Brooklyn is setting itself up to be playoff contenders later on in the decade and until the franchise can do that it will be looking to stay flexible in terms of its salary cap and future commitments. That is why only seven of the 15 players on the active roster, as of this writing, are under contract for next season with the biggest obligations being to center Nic Claxton ($25.3 million) and forward Cam Johnson ($22.5 million).

With that being said, the player that is generating the most buzz around the league with regards to the trade market is Johnson given that he could help almost any team in its pursuit of a deep playoff fun, but his value on the market has yet to be determined. Here is what you need to know about the Nets heading into the trade deadline that could set the franchise up for the future (with data from Spotrac):

Financials

The Nets currently have $176.1 million of cap allocations on the roster right now, meaning that they have $1.9 million worth of space under the first apron. However, due to the sign-and-trade that brought Shake Milton to Brooklyn in the Mikal Bridges trade with the New York Knicks this past offseason, Brooklyn is hard-capped at the first apron.

For the purposes of this article, the Nets aren’t planning to go over the first apron for any reason and even if they do to facilitate a move, their focus is on the future where they have 16 tradable first-round picks between now and 2031. As far as trade exceptions are concerned, Brooklyn has a $23.3 million exception from the Bridges trade, the $12.8 million Non-Taxpayer MLE, and the $3.4 million exception from the Royce O’Neale trade last season that sent him to the Phoenix Suns.

2025 Draft Picks

The Nets have 16 first-round picks between now and 2031 that they can trade so their draft capital is not an issue at this point in time. However, since Brooklyn wants this rebuild to be as short as possible, it’s time to take a look at what picks they are expected to have for the 2025 NBA Draft and who those picks can get them.

Per Tankathon, the Nets are projected to have the fifth overall pick (own), 22nd (via Milwaukee Bucks), 26th (via New York Knicks), and 27th (via Houston Rockets). Based on Tankathon’s mock draft, those picks would earn the Nets Illinois guard Kasparas Jakucionis, Georgetown big man Thomas Sorber, Arkansas forward Adou Thiero, and Michigan center Danny Wolf.

Nets Most Likely To Be Traded

Based on all of the information that has been disseminated over the past few weeks, it seems that the only player on the Nets that has a real chance of being elsewhere after the deadline is Cam Johnson. It does seem like Johnson’s market has cooled a bit as there appears to be less teams that want him as much as they did at the beginning of this season and with players like Sacramento Kings star De’Aaron Fox being added to the mix, it’s possible that teams will pivot back to Brooklyn once other options have been exhausted.

There has been some talk of Ben Simmons being a buyout candidate, but there doesn’t appear to be much of a reason for Simmons to agree to a buyout even if he is able to join a contender because he should be focused on maximizing his contract in free-agency next season. Being on the Nets, assuming he stays healthy, gives Simmons the chance to prove he can be an effective point guard as opposed to having his role reduced on a team looking to win a championship.

While Nic Claxton has struggled for most of this season, Brooklyn gave him his contract for a reason and as of this writing, it seems like he is staying with the Nets unless another team blows them away with an offer, but there hasn’t been much reporting to suggest that Claxton is being pursued by other teams.

Bojan Bogdanovic, who has yet to play this season due to his recovery from offseason foot surgery, could be a trade candidate, but he has yet to step on the floor for the Nets and if anything, could remain on the roster to rebuild his value for his own upcoming free-agency.

Lastly, D’Angelo Russell and De’Anthony Melton, who is ruled out for the rest of this season with a torn ACL, are two guys who are on expiring contracts so if Brooklyn wants to maximize its cap space next summer, keeping their contracts on the books would be ideal for that purpose. Russell also has his own free-agency to think about so he’s in a similar position to Simmons in that he will be looking to prove himself in the hopes of getting another sizable contract next offseason.