The Brooklyn Nets are heading into the Las Vegas Summer League with a couple of names drawing the loudest buzz: Egor Demin and Mikel Brown Jr.
Bleacher Report’s Zach Buckley slotted Demin at No. 14 on his top-30 summer league prospect list, making him the lone Nets player to crack the ranking despite Brooklyn’s five first-round picks in 2025. Demin was the first of that group taken, going eighth overall, and Buckley pointed to him as the one who “flashed the most promise this past season.”
Brown landed even higher, at No. 7, and Buckley made clear the appeal is all about ceiling. “By upside alone, there's a real chance this ranking sits a few spots short of where Mikel Brown Jr. should stand,” Buckley wrote.
“He didn't have quite enough flashes at Louisville to justify landing higher-he battled both inconsistency and a (possibly related?) back injury-but those glimpses were jaw-droppers.
Brown can and will launch from anywhere, and his risk-taking as a passer is often just as audacious..”
Demin, 20, has already given Brooklyn a strong early look in summer play. In Monday’s 100-79 win over Golden State Warriors Blue, he put up 23 points, eight rebounds and five assists. He’s expected to be in the lineup when the Nets open their Las Vegas schedule, and he may be close to the point where Brooklyn feels there’s nothing left to learn before training camp arrives in the fall.
Brown, also 20, is in a different spot. He still has more proving to do before the regular season, but the Nets are clearly using summer league to sort out exactly what they have in both young guards. If Demin keeps rolling and Brown starts stacking the kind of flashes Buckley described, Brooklyn’s backcourt could become one of the more closely watched storylines in Vegas.
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