Was Trading Cam Johnson a Mistake for Brooklyn Nets?

The Brooklyn Nets were involved in one of the biggest moves of the offseason, but it might not have been worth it.

After finishing last season as one of the worst teams in the league, the Nets knew they were still in the midst of a rebuild and were ready to make some moves this summer. While they used five first-round picks on draft night, that wasn’t the reason the Nets made headlines that day.

Instead, Brooklyn made a somewhat shocking deal when it sent Cam Johnson to the Denver Nuggets for Michael Porter Jr. and an unprotected 2032 first-round pick. The deal was somewhat shocking simply because of the nature of Johnson’s tenure with the Nets.

Despite seemingly being on the trade block since his arrival at the 2023 trade deadline, Johnson had stuck with the Nets for over two seasons, with Brooklyn shooting down every offer for him. Considering the reported asking price for Johnson, it seemed like Brooklyn might have just been ready to get the transaction out of the way when it took Denver’s offer.

While Johnson was almost certainly going to be playing elsewhere before his contract was up, the Nets might have actually benefitted from a bit more patience. The win for the Nets in this situation was simply the 2032 pick from the Nuggets, which has some real potential to be good because at that point Nikola Jokic will be 37, Jamal Murray will be 35, and both could easily be playing elsewhere by that point.

Of course, there’s still a clear risk involved there. Stephen Curry and LeBron James are 37 and 40, respectively, and are two of the only three other active multi-time MVP winners and are still leading their teams to the postseason, so it wouldn’t be some unbelievable feat for Jokic to do the same in seven years.

Meanwhile, the Nets might have made a mistake in swapping Johnson for Porter. Although he was a starter on Denver’s 2023 title team and beyond, Porter’s reputation as a black hole and unwilling passer have only been aided by his play in recent years.

That type of player might be ready to take on a larger role, but Porter’s play style isn’t quite as helpful as Johnson’s for a team like Brooklyn that wants to develop young talent. Add in Porter’s much larger contract on the same time frame, and the Nets might have let patience turn into impatience far too soon.