The Brooklyn Nets went into the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery tied with the Washington Wizards and the Indiana Pacers for the No. 1 overall pick with 14% odds. Unfortunately, by the end of the afternoon, their pick was the lowest among the three, coming in at No. 6. This is the second straight year the Nets have fallen in the lottery after a tanking season, going from No. 6 to No. 8 in the 2025 NBA Draft.
The Nets have been locked into the rebuilding cycle that teams like the Wizards and Utah Jazz have been trapped in, although the Wizards and the Jazz finally got something out of their tanking with the No. 1 and No. 2 picks in the 2026 NBA Draft, respectively. The Nets didn’t receive their reward and are now heading into an offseason where they have multiple roster holes to fill but no superstar to build around.
Their poor draft lottery luck doesn’t just factor in their fall in the 2025 NBA Draft lottery; it also applies to their draft history since 2010. The only times when their pick actually jumped up in the NBA Draft led to their pick going to some other franchise due to a previous trade, which has caused Brooklyn to miss out on multiple NBA superstars.
Let’s analyze the Nets’ lottery history since 2010 and examine if their bad luck is some sort of a curse.
The Superstars They Missed
Damian Lillard: 2012 NBA Draft, No. 6 pick
Jaylen Brown: 2016 NBA Draft, No. 3 pick
Jayson Tatum: 2017 NBA Draft, No. 1 pick*
*Celtics traded down from No. 1 to No. 3 to draft Jayson Tatum*
Within a span of five seasons, Nets draft picks led to three MVP-caliber players getting drafted into the NBA, but on two different franchises.
It starts with Damian Lillard in 2012, who was selected by the Portland Trail Blazers using the Nets’ No. 6 overall pick, which they received in a trade for Gerald Wallace at the 2012 trade deadline. Lillard went on to become the greatest scorer in Blazers history with 19,376 points (and counting). He spent two seasons with the Milwaukee Bucks from 2022 to 2024 before rejoining the Blazers last summer while recovering from a torn Achilles.
Lillard is a nine-time All-Star and seven-time All-NBA selection. He won Rookie of the Year in 2013 and has been a star in the NBA since his career started. Unfortunately, the Nets didn’t get to see any of that, as they had no control over Lillard’s career due to the Gerald Wallace trade.
Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum are two sides of the same coin here, as the picks that became a championship-winning duo for the Boston Celtics came from the Nets’ doomed trade for Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce in July 2013, which saw Pierce, Garnett, Jason Terry, and D.J. White join the Nets in exchange for Gerald Wallace, Kris Humphries, Keith Bogans, MarShon Brooks, Kris Joseph, and three future first round draft picks and the option to swap first round picks during the 2017 draft
While the Nets saw some runs to the second-round after making the trade, they regressed into a lottery team by the mid-2010s; one of the picks they sent the Celtics became Jaylen Brown in 2016, and the 2017 pick-swap became Jayson Tatum.
The pair won the 2024 NBA Championship together for Boston, with Brown winning Finals and Conference Finals MVP. Jaylen is a five-time All-Star and one-time All-NBA selection, while Tatum is a six-time All-Star and five-time All-NBA selection. Either player would’ve transformed the Nets into a Playoff-caliber franchise, but instead, the Celtics have enjoyed a dominant decade in the East led by this duo.
The Starters That Went Elsewhere
Enes Kanter: 2011 NBA Draft, No. 3 pick
Collin Sexton: 2018 NBA Draft, No. 8 pick
Reed Sheppard: 2024 NBA Draft, No. 3 pick
The Nets traded their 2011 NBA draft pick, along with Devin Harris and Derrick Favors, for Deron Williams in February 2011, and then watched as their sixth-best pick jumped to No. 3 for the Utah Jazz. The Jazz would draft Enes Kanter at No. 3, but this was the draft that had players like Kemba Walker, Klay Thompson, and Kawhi Leonard go later in the top 15, so the Nets could’ve potentially picked up a superstar if they controlled their own picks. This was before the ill-fated Garnett-Pierce trade, so maybe the Nets would’ve found a franchise cornerstone at No. 3 in the stacked 2011 Draft instead of watching the Jazz spend it on selecting Kanter.
The Celtics traded Brooklyn’s 2018 first-round pick, which they controlled from the Garnett-Pierce trade, to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Kyrie Irving, with the Cavaliers selecting Collin Sexton with the No. 8 pick that the Nets could’ve had if they never made the trade that brought such terrible luck to the franchise for over a decade. Sexton has been a consistent role-player in the NBA, averaging 18.3 points and 3.6 assists over his career, but the Nets never saw him represent their franchise. This was a season before the Nets went all-in on Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, so they likely didn’t feel the sting of missing this pick at that time.
The latest instance of another team taking a high Nets draft pick came in 2024 when the Houston Rockets selected Reed Sheppard with the No. 3 pick in the Draft. The Nets’ lottery rank was No. 9, and yet their pick jumped to No. 3 for Houston’s benefit. The Nets would have killed to get this luck in the last two lotteries when they controlled their own pick, but the last time it jumped was for the Rockets. Houston got this pick as part of the James Harden trade in 2021, with Sheppard becoming a Rockets starter this season.
The Picks That Crashed
2010 NBA Draft: Lottery Rank (No. 1), Final Result (No. 3)
2025 NBA Draft: Lottery Rank (No. 6), Final Result (No. 8)
2026 NBA Draft: Lottery Rank (No. 3), Final Result (No. 6)
The three picks where they went into the lottery with high hopes of getting a good result are exactly when the lottery decided to turn against them. The first instance came in 2010, when the Nets fell to No. 3 in the John Wall draft. They settled on drafting Derrick Favors at No. 3 before being traded in less than a year to the Jazz in the aforementioned Deron Williams deal. Wall would become a franchise legend in Washington and was on stage for the Wizards at the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery as they got the No. 1 pick.
The Nets were a middling lottery team heading into the 2025 NBA Draft, where Cooper Flagg was going to be the unanimous No. 1 pick. Even though being at No. 6 only gave them 9.0% odds at jumping to No. 1, they had over 45.84% chance at staying at 6 or jumping higher. Instead, they fell to No. 8, a possibility which had just a 20.5% chance of coming true. This led them to select Egor Demin, who averaged 10.3 points last season as a rookie.
The 2026 NBA Draft Lottery wasn’t kind to the Nets either, as we’ve already discussed. Instead of getting a chance to draft AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, Cameron Boozer, or Caleb Wilson to be their next franchise cornerstone, they’ll have to settle for No. 6 and potentially select one of the many available guards. While they could find the face of their franchise in this Draft, they definitely will be upset over watching their pick fall down the lottery once again.
Whether it’s a curse, bad decisions, or bad timing is immaterial, as the Nets need to find a way to adjust and build a contending squad to return to the Playoffs soon.
