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Isaia Cordinier, the 6’5” French shooting guard acquired last July in the Jeremy Lin trade, tells a French basketball site that he will play for the Nets in the Las Vegas Summer League and Brooklyn is both interested and invested in him.
“I do not know if they are counting on me, but I know they are interested, invested,” Cordinier told BeBasket, according to a Google translation. “They’ve watched me and why not have the chance to join them one day.”
BeBasket said Cordinier’s goal is to be signed to one of the Nets two-way contracts, which would permit him to develop and play with Long Island while training with the Brooklyn staff.
Cordinier, taken by the Hawks with the 44th pick in the 2016 NBA Draft, was a throw-in in the Lin trade. The Nets sent Lin, a 2025 second rounder and the right to swap seconds in 2023 and acquired Cordinier and a heavily protected Blazers’ second in 2020
The Nets then used the newly freed up cap space in a salary dump to acquire the Nuggets first this year and their second in 2020, giving up Isaiah Whitehead in the process. The Nets took on the contracts of Kenneth Faried and Darrell Arthur in that deal. Arthur was traded a week later for Jared Dudley and a Suns second in 2021.
Should Cordinier develop, the deal, already considered a success on several levels, would look even better. The hyper athletic 22-year-old missed all of last season following double knee surgery to treat tendinitis which had troubled him for several years. After a slow start with the Antibes Sharks of the French Serie A League, he took off the last two months.
In the last 11 games, Cordinier has exploded. He’s averaged 15.5 points a game, including games of 27 and 28 points, shooting 53.3 percent overall (including 40.5 percent on three’s) to go along with 5.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists.
Once the French season ends, according to BeBasket, Cordinier is expected to come to the U.S. to train. Cordinier said the Nets have sent scouts to watch him play and send a trainer to Antibes to work with him several times during the season.
Cordinier said it didn’t surprise him that the Hawks had dealt his rights to the Nets since both the Atlanta GM and coach who had picked him in 2016 were gone by last summer.
BeBasket said that Cordinier, a free agent, has offers from more than half the teams in the French League, but want to pursue his NBA dream before making any commitments.
In addition to Cordinier, the Nets long-time stash, Juan Pablo Vaulet, has said he’s hoping for an invitation to Las Vegas as well. Also beset by injuries throughout his young career, the 23-year-old Vaulet has twice traveled to Las Vegas, once in 2015 and once last year, but was unable to play.