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Expect Draft Night to be active, says Nets' Gregg Polinsky

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Brooklyn Nets

The Nets say they have to do their homework and " be ready for [picks] 29 and 41."  But if you think the Nets will end the 2015 Draft with just those two picks, it will be a surprise.

""I think there's a bunch of ways to play this and Billy is quite creative, as you guys know," Gregg Polinsky, director of player personnel said at the Nets first draft workout, speaking of his boss, Billy King.  Translation; We have to ready for anything the GM or ownership wants to do..

Polinsky laid out a number of possibilities.

"Where we are we have to hope that some of the guys that we have ranked higher drop to us and second round wise- is it a guy that we feel like is somebody like Bojan (Bogdanovic) a few years back that we can take and keep overseas for a little bit, let him cultivate, and then bring him and you see the value of that?"

"So I think there's a bunch of ways to play this. We'll see. It could even be that we move up to get somewhere depending on what that will require, but obviously that will be Billy and ownership's decision, solely, once we give them our opinion on what guys might be worth."

Polinsky, who's been around for more than a decade running the Nets draft, is very often the guy King will turn to in the Nets draft war room for a final recommendation. He admits that the Nets need to get a bit lucky even if they wind up at No. 29. And just because a player drops doesn't mean he's seen negatively.

"So a guy that you are looking at that you valued maybe at 18 gets all the way to 26 and it's not because he doesn't deserve to be drafted higher. It's because teams in those positions -- just based on team roster type, rookie contracts, what other needs are, what their cap is -- there's a lot of reasons teams will pass on a guy that will drop a number of spots, not just one or two. And that's kind of where we are."

As for buying picks, in the second round, using the $2.3 million still have available, Polinsky said the Nets use a simple formula.

"What we've done for Billy as a joke is we've assigned dollar signs," Polinsky said. "And he said, 'What did you do, put me on a budget?' Nah, we kid him like that. But we try to assess the best we can, what we feel is a fair market value to go in and buy a pick. That's literally how we do it, with dollar signs on a guy. Are we right or are we wrong? It's just our opinion like every other team.

"Even though you say, 'Well, you have this much money to spend,' I still think that you should still spend it as if it's your own. And if you value that guy, what is he worth to you? That's how we do it."

But, he admitted, this year's draft crop isn't as deep as it was last year, and others have said there are just aren't that many good European players this year either.  And of course is who you pick as Euro-Stash.

Bottom line, though, is simple, he said. The Nets need to get "more athletic on the perimeter and it wouldn't hurt us probably either to get some bigs that were more athletic as well."

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