What Sean Marks said about Nets falling to No. 6 pick in 2026 NBA Draft Lottery, potential trades

The Brooklyn Nets suffered through another tanking season with dreams of landing a top draft pick and a superstar player. For the second straight year, they got burned.

After entering Sunday’s NBA Draft lottery with the best odds of landing the No. 1 pick (14.0 percent) or inside the top four (52.1 percent), the Nets fell to No. 6. The team’s attention will now shift away from top prospects such as A.J. Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson or Cam Boozer and toward the second tier of players such as Darius Achuff, Keaton Wagler, Kingston Flemings and Mikel Brown Jr.

While that reality is devastating for Nets fans, general manager Sean Marks is confident Brooklyn can land a needle-mover at No. 6.

“We’ve already been prepared, no matter where we were picking in this draft. I think there’s going to be some really good options for us, whether we’re picking one or whether we’re picking ten,” Marks said. “With multiple assets that we have in this draft and multiple future assets, we’re going to continue to build this team up into hopefully something we can be really proud of.”

Sean Marks on the Nets falling to the sixth pick:

"There's going to be some really good options for us, whether we were picking one or ten. With multiple assets that we have in this draft and multiple future assets, we're going to continue to build this team up into hopefully… pic.twitter.com/q3MRs5OYGC

— Erik Slater (@ErikSlater_) May 10, 2026

Despite Marks’ optimism, Sunday’s result adds to the uncertainty surrounding the Nets’ future.

Nets’ poor lottery luck continues as they fall outside of top five of 2026 NBA Draft

In an NBA driven by star power, teams without a superstar spend their days game-planning how to land one.

After trading a surplus of picks to the Houston Rockets to reacquire their 2025 and 2026 first-round picks, the last two drafts presented the Nets’ clearest path to landing a top player. However, they fell from the sixth-best odds to No. 8 last year and had similar poor luck on Sunday.

Will the disappointing result make Brooklyn more likely to be aggressive on the trade market this summer?

“Hard to tell. I think it’s all about how these guys develop, right? I don’t think you want to make rash decisions before you’ve seen how they look,” Marks said. “I think we all know there’s a group in this draft that could be game-changers, but I said could be because you never know. You get down whether it’s six months from now or two years from now, and there are always surprises. So every draft, there’s a guy who people didn’t quite expect to be [that high] if you do the re-draft. So for us, it’ll still be about having patience. But at the end of the day, we’ve got optionality, we’ve maintained flexibility, we’ve got the cap space and assets. So I think the word would be opportunistic.”

Sean Marks on whether the Nets are more likely to be aggressive on the trade market after falling to the 6th pick:

“Hard to tell. I think it’s all about how these guys develop, right? I don’t think you want to make rash decisions before you’ve seen how they look. I think we all… pic.twitter.com/HSxFOTU4ek

— Erik Slater (@ErikSlater_) May 10, 2026

As Marks has consistently pointed out over the last two years, the Nets are flush with assets. They have an NBA-best nine tradable first-round picks and upwards of $45 million in cap space.

Marks and Co. must now figure out how to turn that asset pool into a contending-level core. After two tanking seasons failed to land the Nets a top-five pick, that’s a much taller task than Brooklyn once imagined.

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