Marshall Plumlee, acquired by Long Island in 2018, chooses a different career path

The Long Island Nets are building their roster. They traded this week for Anthony Brown, the 6’7” forward who’s bounced between the NBA and G League the last several years.

They have already signed two-way Henry Ellenson, the 22-year-old 6’11” big whose rights the Knicks renounced last summer to make room for KD and Kyrie (How’d that work out?) and Deng Adel, a 6’7” small forward who played for Cleveland last season. On Saturday, they held an open tryout at LIU Post. looking for diamonds in the rough.

And said Matt Riccardi, the newly anointed Long Island GM, they’re open to the return of a veteran NBA player whose rights they hold, but who now seems to have taken a completely different career path. Marshall Plumlee, the tallest and youngest of the three Plumlee brothers, is in the Army now, a second lieutenant ... and a U.S. Army Ranger, getting his Ranger pin at Fort Benning, Georgia, in August.

Plumlee joined the ROTC at Duke, where he won a national championship. While with the Knicks, he was a member of the New York State National Guard. All of it was inspired by his Duke coach —and West Point grad— Mike Krzyzewski.

Last October, the Nets acquired Plumlee’s rights from the Agua Caliente Clippers in exchange for the 33rd overall pick in the 2018 NBA G League Draft, hoping he still had some basketball left in him.

But, as Riccardi notes, Plumlee seems to have left basketball behind, at least for now.

“I think Marshall [Plumlee] is doing something probably way more important for our country than for us in Long Island right now,” Riccardi told NetsDaily. “If he ever did want to come back, I’m sure we’d be open to the opportunity and hearing him out. But I think he’s got a pretty good career path set for him in terms of his army career.”

In fact, that path was endorsed just last week by none other than General James McConville, the Army’s Chief of Staff, in a tweet.

Plumlee, who won a national championship at Duke, He didn’t have a stellar NBA career, but the Nets were willing to take a chance on him ... and he made more than $700,000 while playing. Now, instead of running plays for Shaun Fein or Kenny Atkinson, he’ll be running plays for Uncle Sam.