Brooklyn Nets Film Room: Egor Dëmin’s Summer League Debut

The new Nets rookie started the game by flying from the corner to the top of the key to contest a three. Then, Dëmin put his body on the line in the open court, taking a charge and preventing an easy OKC bucket. The 19-year-old also helped on a Nikola Topić drive, forcing the Serbian playmaker to cough the ball up. More impressively, he dove on the floor, did the dirty work and recovered the rock for Brooklyn.

Dëmin was fine on defense by the end of his stint at BYU, but he never particularly stood out on that end. He has strong positional measurements, though, coming in at a little over 6-foot-9 in shoes to go alongside a wingspan that exceeds 6-foot-10. Going forward, Dëmin has questions to answer over whether he has the strength to defend wing-sized players like himself, as well as the footspeed to cover smaller ballhandlers. This game was a good start.

Dëmin’s greatest strength throughout his basketball career has been his playmaking. Yet, he finished with zero assists to two turnovers in his Brooklyn debut. 

One of the most pressing matters entering Summer League was how Dëmin’s ballhandling, passing and scoring would all be linked. The Russian rookie has a preternatural feel for the game, as well as an impressive unnatural selfishness and self-awareness, but he ultimately needs to produce.

In the first clip above, Dëmin cannot quite turn the corner on Topić or touch the paint. He still more or less forces the Thunder’s defense into rotation, but he doesn’t create the full advantage. 

The second clip shows one of the earliest tests that an NBA ballhandler can face. Effectively, Dëmin sees the possibility of two defenders on the ball and freezes up. He kills his dribble instantly, rather than taking an escape dribble to retreat and reset, or attempting to elongate his handle around the pressure. Nolan Traore bails him out, but Dëmin will need to do better. This also applies against hedges, for instance.

The third clip is another challenge for Dëmin’s ballhandling. He picks up an avoidable turnover against the gap defender, which cannot happen often as a full-time ballhandler in the NBA. It’s worth pointing out here that all of Brooklyn’s players in this lineup — Dëmin, Ben Saraf, Tosan Evbuomwan, Danny Wolf and Grant Nelson — can make on-ball decisions to some extent.

Dëmin only took threes against OKC, which would almost appear intentional given the doubts surrounding his downtown shot predraft. His attempts were fine and in rhythm. For now, it’s more about the types of threes he takes, rather than whether they go in (unless the attempts look awful, which definitely wasn’t the case here).