The rebuilding Brooklyn Nets aren’t done making moves. First reported by NBA insider, Adrian Wojnarowski, the Nets are acquiring former No. 10 overall pick Ziaire Williams and a 2030 second-round pick from the Memphis Grizzlies in exchange for Mamadi Diakite.
This should be thought of as an extension of the Mikal Bridges trade, as Diakite was acquired from the Knicks as a salary-matching throw-in. Flipping the seldom-used big for a young, even if disappointing up to this point, player and a future draft pick is a masterclass by general manager Sean Marks.
What does Ziaire Williams bring to the table?
With a career stat line of 7.5 points, 2.6 rebounds, and 1.2 assists per game while shooting just 42.6% from the field and 30.1% from three through three seasons in the league it’s easy to say that Williams has been a disappointment to this point in his career after being drafted tenth overall in 2021.
That said, at 6-9 215 pounds he’s the prototypical size for a modern NBA “big wing” which is one of the hottest commodities in the league. Coming out of Stanford scouting reports noted his ability as a playmaker as sort of a point forward, as well as his potential as a shooter. On the defense end, he posted a mediocre 115.3 rating last season, but with his combination of size and athleticism, he has the potential to be a menace in the passing lanes and an above-average defender overall.
To this point, Williams hasn’t put together his talent and potential in a way that yields on-court production. That being said, he’s the perfect kind of buy-low asset the Nets have previously had success with in the past. Now in Brooklyn, Williams doesn’t have the expectations he once did of living up to his draft billing, and instead can focus on becoming a quality NBA rotation player. If it works out it’s a huge win for Brooklyn, and if not it’s no big loss.
The forward spots are now very crowded
Williams’s addition as a combo forward now makes the Brooklyn depth chart very crowded. As it stands now, the players who could log time at either the 3 or the 4 (or both) are as follows:
- Cameron Johnson
- Dorian Finney-Smith
- Jalen Wilson
- Bojan Bogdanovic
- Noah Clowney
- Trendon Watford
- Ziaire Williams
That’s seven players deserving of minutes for at four, or at most five, regular rotation spots. On the flip side, the guard depth is very thin with only Cam Thomas, Dennis Schroder, Ben Simmons, and Shake Milton as roster locks. Thomas and Milton are best suited at the shooting guard position which means only Schroder and Simmons are on the roster as natural point guards, which is risky given Simmons’s injury history.
We’ve discussed how an all-out tank isn’t the best option for player development and the need for the young core to work on their specific development areas within a system. That means that some of the veteran forwards on the team have value to the Nets while also being valuable trade commodities. However, the Nets might be better served swapping some of that forward depth for another primary ball handler who can actually run an offensive system.
Without the structure and stability of having enough true point guards to run an actual offense, the offensive games of several young players could become stunted, and bad habits may develop. It would not be surprising for Marks to rebalance the roster in some way with another trade, and to potentially see a young forward on the move if the return is a young guard who can run the point.
Despite Summer League wrapping up and the NBA moving into the slowest portion of the calendar, don’t expect the Nets to stop wheeling and dealing as they look to reshape the roster for the long haul.
