Deadlines and Commitments - No. 115

Timofey Mozgov announced this week that he will play for Team Russia next month in the FIBA World Cup Qualifying Tournament, making him the only member of the Nets (current) roster to play internationally this summer. Both of the Nets stashes, Argentina’s Juan Pablo Vaulet and Bulgaria’s Aleksandar Vezenkov, will play as well next month as national teams vie to make the final field for next summer’s World Cup in China.

With the Draft now less than four weeks away, there will be increased activity there as well.

May 30 - Last day an NCAA underclassman can withdraw from the draft and retain his college eligibility. A player who’s hired an agent automatically gives up his eligibility. A critical date for Nets planning since the 2019 Draft will be the first in six long years where the Nets have their own pick. The more players who drop out of the 2018 Draft, the more wind up in 2019.

May 30 - June 2 - Caris LeVert and assistant coach Bret Brielmaier will participate as coaches at the NBA’s Basketball Without Borders at the NBA Academy India in Delhi, India.

May 31 - June 9 - Jeremy Lin heads to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Shanghai on the first of his two “sharing tours” to Asia. He’ll travel to China later this summer. Lin will spend the first week of the tour in Taiwan, then head to Hong Kong for events on June 7 and 8 and Shanghai to close out the tour on June 9.

June 2-5 - NBA Elite International Camp (Treviso, Italy). The European version of the NBA Draft Combine. For the first time, this camp will be run by the NBA, not adidas. It will feature at least 40 NBA prospects and like the Draft Combine, reps from every NBA team. More tryouts, measurements, medical checks, interviews ... and more conversations between GM’s.

June 2 - Another Nets mini-camp? An international player out of Paris, point guard Chris Jones, says he’s working out with Nets that day.

June 11 - NBA Draft Early Entry Entrant Withdrawal Deadline (5 p.m. ET) Last day international players can opt out of the Draft.

June 21 - NBA Draft. The Nets have the Raptors lottery-protected pick in the first round, the Lakers and Bucks second round picks. All that said, the Nets currently hold the 29th (Raptors), 40th (Lakers) and 45th (Bucks) picks. The Nets secured all those picks in trades, the first two in the DeMarre Carroll-for-Justin Hamilton deal with Toronto last July; the third in return for Tyler Zeller at the deadline.

The Cavaliers have their Nets own first rounder, which is currently eighth but could change after the Lottery, and the 76ers hold their second rounder, now 38th, acquired in a 2014 salary dump that sent Andrei Kirilenko and Jorge Gutierrez down the Turnpike.

June 25 - 2018 NBA Awards are announced. Don’t expect any Nets to win, but the votes for each award will be released as well. How did Spencer Dinwiddie do in Most Improved, Jarrett Allen in Rookie of the Year?

June 28-July 1 - FIBA World Cup Qualifiers Americas. Juan Pablo Vaulet, the Nets 6’7” stash from the 2015 Draft, plays for Argentina in the final round of qualifiers for the World Cup 2019. Argentina will play Panama and Uruguay.

Also, Ronald Nored, the Long Island Nets head coach, will make his debut as a Team USA assistant coach. (The American and Argentine teams play in different venues.)

June 29-July 2 - FIBA World Cup Qualifiers Europe. Timofey Mozgov will play for Russia vs. Belgium and France. Mozgov and Alexey Shved, the former Knick who led the Euroleague in scoring, both agreed to play for the national team this past week.

Aleksandar Vezenkov, the Nets 6’9” stash from the 2017 Draft, plays for Bulgaria in final round of qualifiers for World Cup 2019. Bulgaria must beat the Czech Republic and Iceland to qualify.

June 29 - Nets can tender Nik Stauskas a $5.1 million qualifying offer, making him a restricted free agent. Otherwise, he becomes an unrestricted free agent and the Nets can re-sign him if they wish. Should the Nets do the unlikely and make that qualifying offer, they have until July 13 to pull it.

June 30 - Nets can exercise their team option on Isaiah Whitehead ’s $1.5 million non-guaranteed salary for 2018-19. Because of a quirk in the CBA, the Nets would only save $700,000 in cap space. So expect Whitehead back. IF, on the other hand, the Nets waive him, it would suggest the Nets are clearing as much cap space as they can for some free agency move.

Also the final day for the Nets to spend their $5.1 million in cash considerations. Most of it is normally used on Draft Day deals. Last year was the first time in the Mikhail Prokhorov ownership era that the Nets did not use cash considerations to buy a pick. Before that, they had spent a grand total of nearly $10 million on nearly seven deals that helped them either acquire a pick or move up.

July 1 - Jahlil Okafor, Dante Cunningham, (presumably) Nik Stauskas, Quincy Acy, and Joe Harris become unrestricted free agents. Free Agency opens around the league with a five-day moratorium that permits negotiations but no signings.

July 5 - Free Agency Moratorium ends. Players can now put pen to paper.

July 13 - Should the Nets tender Stauskas a qualifying offer, they can withdraw it at any time up to this date.

July 6-17 - 2018 NBA Summer League (Las Vegas) All 30 teams in one league for the first time. Expect a number of the young Nets to play. It’s uncertain whether Jarrett Allen will be among them.

July 28 - August 6 - Jeremy Lin’s second “sharing tour” to Asia will take him —and Spencer Dinwiddie — to China, specifically Guangzhou in southern China. Lin normally has one long tour of Asia, but his trainers advised him to do two tours to save wear-and-tear on his body.

September 7 - Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2018 Enshrinement Ceremony. Jason Kidd and Rod Thorn will be in Springfield, Mass, at the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

So what’s it like during the off-season? Here’s Sean Marks at the end-of-the-season press conference...

”A lot of ours is summer planning. We’re hopefully preparing for every different scenario that may never happen or may happen. So we don’t want any surprises. That’s one of our littler mottos here, is we want to be prepared for everything that possibly could happen,” said the Nets GM.

“And I think that’s fun going through that daily debating and debriefing on what we just did. How could we have improved? At the trade deadline did we do a good enough job? Could we have done a better job here at the draft, so forth? What did we learn from last year’s draft and so forth?

“A lot of our days is preparing, whether it’s evaluating talent, watching these guys conduct draft workouts, and then just preparing for both the draft and free agency coming up.”