Brooklyn Nets Draft Reaction: 3-on-3

1. How will Tyshawn Taylor impact the Brooklyn Nets?

Chris Hooker: I think Tyshawn Taylor will be the #3 point guard for the Nets behind, wait for it, Deron Williams and Jason Kidd. He’ll play Sundianta Gaines-level minutes off the bench and he will play in a similar style. Taylor is a great scorer, but he takes a lot of shots. Hopefully the NBA will teach him to not do that anymore. Taylor will be a good Net, and at 41, I think Brooklyn got good value here. I guess I am also especially excited since KU is my college basketball team and I’ve actually watched him play in a fan way. So that’s cool.

Devin Kharpertian: He’ll play immediately. Deron Williams and Jason Kidd are both big enough guards that you can run a two-guard set with either of those two and the 6’4″ Taylor for a few minutes per game. He won’t start, possibly ever, and he won’t play more than 10 to 15 minutes per game at the outset, but he won’t look like a lost rookie out of the gate. That’s as comfortable as I am talking about him at this point.

Justin DeFeo: I view Taylor less as a point guard and simply consider him a guard. With Deron back in the fold, there won’t be many minutes to be had as the primary ball-handler anyway, but Taylor can make his presence felt as a defender. Taylor played four years for potentially the best defensive high school coach ever in Bobby Hurley and four more years at Kansas with another hard-nosed coach, Bill Self. He has a lot of dog in him and I could see him having an Avery Bradley type of impact in the future.

Hooker: I was really hoping the Nets would take Kevin Jones out of WVU instead of Illken Karaman, but I see why the Nets are doing it. It’s like taking a pick without actually taking one in terms of conserving cap space and they want to go into free agency and make a splash. Who knows? Maybe the next Manu Ginobilli is in there. And yes, I have heard that Manu was the #57 pick about 30,000 times in the last two weeks.

Kharpertian: I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, Eurostashed players means flexibility in the next few years — Tornike Shengalia has a $300,000 buyout that the Nets can choose to exercise if they want him immediately. On the other hand, I’m a fan of shooting guard Darius Johnson-Odom, who was taken with the 55th pick — just one after Shengalia — and eventually sold to the Los Angeles Lakers. But, like all Eurostashes, we won’t know how well it turned out for a few years.

DeFeo: Love it. The Nets get to stash away these European assets and let them develop on someone else’s dime. It’s a smart strategy and one the Spurs have perfected. As my general rule of NBA thumb, copy the Spurs as often as possible.

Hooker: I’m going with disappointing. I thought we would see a big trade for the Nets, at least one into the first round, but I guess they want to lock Deron up before they do anything. Totally understandable, and despite not knowing a single thing about their last two picks, I think the Nets got good value with Taylor, so there’s that.

Kharpertian: Can I split the difference and say both? Disappointing in the sense that the Nets didn’t buy into the first round. Satisfying in that they didn’t overpay to get there. Disappointing in the sense that Perry Jones III fell to #28 and it never seemed like the Nets had any whisper of getting him. Satisfying in that they made smart, cash-only trades, particularly the Tyshawn Taylor deal. Disappointing that they passed on Johnson-Odom, satisfying that they seem to have a plan. All in all, a mundane, confusing up-and-down evening.

DeFeo: I’ll say satisfying. While it wasn’t splashy and didn’t give us the big payoff of a major move, the Nets got better tonight with the addition of Taylor and acquired more assets while only giving up cash.