With the Nets knee-deep in a rebuild, pundits predict they’ll be one of the worst teams in the NBA.
The bookmakers project them simply to be the worst.
But the actual youths in that youth movement see opportunity.
And they plan on fighting for it.
“I look at it as a positive. I look for the best in every situation,” second-year big man Noah Clowney said Wednesday at a local Brooklyn Basketball Summer Camp. “Yeah, we’re young, so you know, we look at our roster and people think we can’t compete. That don’t mean we’re supposed to go out there and lay down.
“So I think we’re young, we can grow together, and we can build something. And that’s the goal.”
Since pulling off a pair of stunning trades this offseason — getting back their own natural 2025 and ’26 first-round picks from Houston, then dealing Mikal Bridges to the Knicks for five first-rounders and a swap — Brooklyn signaled a clear intent to rebuild.
The Nets are projected to win an NBA-worst 19.5 games by FanDuel and BetMGM, lacking stars and loaded with youth.
They have a stunning eight players on the roster 23 years old or younger, with Clowney and Dariq Whitehead two of the youngest players in the league.
Clowney just turned 20 during Las Vegas Summer League. Whitehead’s 20th birthday was Aug. 1.
But one man’s tanking is another man’s chance to prove himself.
“Of course,” Jalen Wilson told The Post. “Of course, I think we all knew that, going into Summer League, the opportunity that we had, as far as all the young guys having the chance to really play this year. So I just take every single day and every single opportunity I’m handed as a blessing, and I want to attack everything.
“I started off with Summer League, and now that’ll fall into the summer and going to training camp and things like that. So it’s taking advantage of opportunity. That’s all you ask for as a young guy in the NBA is opportunity to play and get to showcase what you can do.”
Wilson and Trendon Watford, both 23, are at the upper end of that youth movement.
So young is half the roster that they’re not so far removed from the campers that Clowney, Wilson, and Keon Johnson mentored at nearby Hellenic Classical Charter School.
Johnson — like Cam Thomas, Day’Ron Sharpe, and Ziaire Williams — is just 22. He is another player cashing in on his newfound golden opportunity.
He went to Summer League as an unrestricted free agent and earned a two-year, $4.5 million deal.
“I feel like it’s a staple to the work I’ve been putting in over the past couple of years,” Johnson said. “I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs, pretty much since I’ve been drafted, and I just kind of held my hat on just keep putting the work in, and hopefully one day my number will get called, and I’ll have the opportunity like I am now.”
