Nets projected to be tanking team once again in 2026-27 NBA season

The Brooklyn Nets finished their 2025-26 season with a lowly 20-62 record and as a result, they were one of the teams that watched the NBA playoffs from the comfort of their home. Brooklyn will likely do whatever it takes to improve the team heading into the 2026-27 season after the New York Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs for the NBA title, but most are not believers in the Nets turning the team around in one offseason.

>"Lottery reform will be in place next season, so the Nets are highly incentivized to do something other than the tankathon exercise they've deployed for the past three seasons," Vincent Goodwill wrote of the Nets for ESPN. ESPN ranked Brooklyn 29th (out of 30) in its way-too-early power rankings for the 2026-27 season and it seems like the outlet isn't buying that the Nets could drastically improve the roster this summer.

>"Considering they'll have the No. 6 pick in this upcoming strong draft and more than $80 million in salary cap space according to ESPN's Bobby Marks, the Nets will at least make an attempt at putting out a competent product on the floor in the 2026-2027 season," Goodwill continued on the Nets. "Three of their rookies were teenagers last season, so internal growth should occur as well."

>The Nets came into this offseason with what ultimately became the No. 6 overall pick in the 2026 NBA Draft as well as being one of the few teams to have ample cap space to use. The first order of business for Brooklyn is deciding what they will do with the No. 6 pick when the first round of the draft happens on Jun. 23 and after that, they will have to figure out how they will approach free-agency.

>At this point, the Nets will have to decide whether the 2026-27 campaign will be a season where they try to win as many games as possible given that they do not have control of their own first-round pick in the 2027 NBA Draft or if they will continue their current rebuild. Either way, Brooklyn isn't highly-regarded right now, but that could change by the end of June now that the offseason has officially begun.

>This article originally appeared on Nets Wire: Nets projected to be tanking team once again in 2026-27 NBA season