Brooklyn Nets Select Egor Demin with 8th Pick in 2025 NBA Draft

For the first time in 15 years, the Brooklyn Nets were in the lottery as they had the eighth pick in the 2025 NBA Draft. With the selection, the team drafted BYU Cougars guard Egor Demin to help the team step up. He averaged 10.6 points, 3.9 rebounds, 5.5 assists, 0.4 blocks, and 1.2 steals in 33 games in his singular season of college basketball and adds a lengthy player to the Brooklyn Nets. Let’s take a deeper dive into this pick and what it means going forward.

Brooklyn Nets Select Egor Demin

This pick is a bit of a headscratcher, but there are some bright spots for Demin here. He is going to get a chance to get on the court immediately with a Nets team that are searching for some answers. ESPN’s Bob Myers said on the 2025 NBA Draft show that he is the best passer in the draft class and can be an elite playmaker. However, there are still some concerns for what the Russian guard can do shooting the basketball. For the Cougars last season, he shot 27.3% from beyond the arc and 69.5% from the free-throw line, two areas where he is going to need to significantly improve.

Final Thoughts

This is just the first of potentially five rookies that will be selected tonight by the Brooklyn Nets. However, Demin has a high ceiling if he can improve on his shooting stroke and having a pass-first guard on the floor is something the Nets had with Ben Simmons for a few years. This is something that can be fixed and would make the Nets look even better going forward. This pick feels like a bit of a reach but there seemingly is something general manager Sean Marks saw in him. Having a backcourt with Cam Thomas and Demin could be intriguing as their styles complement one another.

It will be interesting to see what Brooklyn does with the other four first-round picks, but they have added an elite passer with the first one.