The Brooklyn Nets traded forward Mikal Bridges to the New York Knicks last week after he started every game and led the team in points and assists during the 2023-24 NBA season. The deal netted Brooklyn five first-round draft picks – two in 2025 and one each in 2027, 2029 and 2031.
After the Nets posted a 32-50 record last season, the deal doesn’t seem to offer much hope for improvement for Brooklyn in the 2024-25 campaign.
But Nets center/forward Noah Clowney has an alternate view of the trade.
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“I feel Mikal almost should feel proud in a sense,” Clowney said on Monday. “To get traded for five first-round picks is a superstar-level type thing. But it’s an opportunity for me. No shade to him -- that’s my dog. I love him. But to see us going into more of a rebuilding standpoint, that’s an amazing opportunity for me, and I got to try to take advantage of that. …
“Just trying to build with what we got is my main focus. The picks, I leave that to the people who decide all that. I just try to do my part, play hard and be enthusiastic about everything that we’re doing, so like I said opportunities. It should be fun.”
Clowney joined the Nets from Alabama as the 21st selection in the 2023 NBA Draft.
The 6-foot-10 rookie got most of his playing time with Brooklyn’s NBA G League affiliate, the Long Island Nets. With Long Island, Clowney averaged 15.6 points, 8.2 rebounds and 1.8 blocked shots in 34 games.
With Brooklyn, Clowney averaged 5.8 points and 3.5 rebounds in 16.1 minutes in 23 games, with four starts. Clowney played in the Nets’ final 13 games of the season. In the final six games, he made his first four NBA starts and averaged 13.5 points, 7.0 rebounds, 1.2 assists and 2.2 blocked shots in 30.6 minutes.
“From Noah’s standpoint, we’ve all been pretty excited about how he finished last year,” Nets general manager Sean Marks said on Monday, “and also now taking that and can he take the next steps during summer league.”
Brooklyn’s entry in the NBA 2K25 Summer League in Las Vegas opens play against the Indiana Pacers at 7 p.m. CDT Friday.
“I’m going in there with a good mindset – win, have fun, obviously showcase that I can do different things,” Clowney said. “But I don’t really have individual goals for summer league. I just want to win games.”
In last year’s summer league, Clowney averaged 4.8 points, 5.4 rebounds, 1.4 assists, 1.0 steals and 1.4 blocks in 19.4 minutes in five games.
That was coming off his only season at Alabama, when Clowney averaged 9.8 points and 7.9 rebounds per game.
“Going into college my mindset was to play harder than everybody,” Clowney said. “That was what I was going for. And it got me to the next level. But just playing harder than everybody’s not enough anymore. You got to do that, and you got to bring more to the table than that. And so being able to work on skill aspects of the game and maintain the other parts of the game that I do have and being able to use intangibles like my wingspan, my length, things like that, just got to be able to do it and get better at it, so, yes, I feel a whole lot better than I did then, a whole lot stronger.”
Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.