Nets' Egor Demin voted as biggest reach of the 2025 NBA Draft

Yahoo

2 days ago

The Brooklyn Nets made one of the more shocking moves in the first round of the 2025 NBA Draft when they decided to take BYU G Egor Demin with the eighth overall pick. Brooklyn general manager Sean Marks has maintained that the team was interested in the potential of Demin as a bigger point guard, but other front-office personnel don't see the vision.
"Even if you believe in [Demin] as a starting NBA point guard -- and I don't -- it seems like he would've been gettable at the end of the lottery, or even later," an Eastern Conference executive said of Demin, per ESPN's Jeremy Woo. Woo conducted a survey of 20 "anonymous NBA executives and scouts" asking for their opinion on the 2025 rookie class, including the biggest reach.
"Brooklyn held five first-round picks and ultimately made and rostered all five of them, enabling a strategy that led to several swings on playmaking prospects, including Demin," Woo wrote while discussing why the Nets would take a chance on Demin. "At 6-foot-9, Demin has excellent passing skills but was divisive for teams all season as he dealt with ups and downs adjusting to college basketball at BYU."
Demin, 19, is coming off a 2025 NBA Las Vegas Summer League in which he did not put up gaudy numbers, but answered some questions surrounding his shooting ability to play off the ball. Demin played three games during the summer league and averaged 11.3 points, 4.3 rebounds, and 1.3 assists per game while shooting 40.7% from the field and 43.5% from three-point land.
Demin received seven votes among executives for the biggest reach of the 2025 Draft, followed by Portland Trail Blazers center Yang Hansen (four votes) and Memphis Grizzlies guard Cedric Coward (three). While Demin is regarded as a reach, it's still too early to be sure of his career. One scout that spoke to Woo echoed that sentiment by saying that he didn't cast his vote because "If [your] team believed in the guy, then take your guy," per Woo.
This article originally appeared on Nets Wire: Nets' Egor Demin voted as biggest reach of the 2025 NBA Draft