Evaluating the Brooklyn Nets 'Specific' Offseason

From the very start of this NBA offseason, the Brooklyn Nets have had a plan. Acquire loads of young talent through the NBA Draft, and bring in some veterans who could be moved at the trade deadline.

These are very typical moves for a franchise in the midst of a rebuild. What's less typical is using all five first-round picks on point guards or ball-handling bigs. General manager Sean Marks clearly had a type of player he wanted to bring in through the draft process and addressed that thoroughly. The rest of the NBA world has taken notice.

Bleacher Report released an article describing every NBA team's offseason in one word, and the word to describe the Nets makes a lot of sense: Specific.

The Brooklyn Nets clearly have a type. Either that, or the intern who put their pre-draft rankings into a spreadsheet forgot to include columns for SG, SF, PF and C.

That's how Brooklyn wound up using all five of its first-round picks on players best defined as ball-handlers.

Danny Wolf is a 7-footer, but even he projects as something much closer to a guard than most players his size. Otherwise, the Nets added Egor Demin, Nolan Traoré, Drake Powell and Ben Saraf—point guards across the board.Grant Hughes, Bleacher Report

Bleacher Report focused heavily on the Nets' draft day approach, which saw them focus primarily on ball handlers. Ever since the departure of Kyrie Irving, the Nets have been looking for their next primary ball handler/point guard, and figured that taking multiple shots in the draft would land them that player. All of the drafted guards have a specific skillset: talented ball handlers and passers who need to improve their shooting.

It's not a bad strategy, especially given the "hit rate" of draft picks in the modern-day NBA. Odds are that at least one of the four first-round pick guards will hit, giving the Nets a ball handler to build around. But it's certainly a unique strategy from Marks and one that received a lot of criticism from analysts on draft night. If these rookies can't develop their shot, then this draft will be a failure.

But despite the criticism, it's clear that Marks has a vision for the future of the Nets franchise. He's specifically going after players who will be in Brooklyn for the long haul, or could fetch players and draft picks for the future. Marks is betting his job on this rebuild strategy, so he better hope that at least one of these rookie guards pans out to be the future in Brooklyn. If not, this rebuild may take a lot longer than expected.