LAS VEGAS — The Nets pledged to get more athletic this summer, and have spent the past month trying to do so.
But the process actually began at last season’s All-Star break, when coach Lionel Hollins looked down his bench and decided to give rookie Markel Brown a chance. Brown had spent the majority of the first half of the season as a paid observer.
Over the final two months, Brown moved into the starting lineup and averaged 6.0 points and 3.2 rebounds in just under 23 minutes per game. He has spent the past two weeks playing for the Nets in their two summer leagues, trying to keep his momentum going.
“I think everything has been going good,” Brown said before the Nets lost 85-64 to the D-League select team in Brooklyn’s final game of the summer.
“[I’m] just working on being a more consistent scorer, being more of a vocal leader on the court, just going out there and tuning up the defense that I played over the second half of the season.”
The Nets took Brown with the No. 44 pick in the 2014 draft. They liked his potential to become a “3 and D” player — a wing capable of hitting 3-pointers while also playing defense, the most coveted type of role player in today’s NBA.
But while Brown, an outstanding athlete, showed potential on the defensive end, his 26.6 percent clip (17-for-64) from behind the 3-point arc showed he still has a way to go to fill the offensive half of that equation.
He showed slight improvement with his shot statistically during summer league, averaging 12.4 points while shooting 31.4 percent (11-for-35) from 3-point range before sitting out Friday night’s finale. Brown said he’s focused on improving his 3-point shot, but he will not let that get in the way of his focus on defense.
“Knocking down that shot will be great,” Brown said. “But I think if I continue to play good defense and create for myself and my team and make everybody around me better, I think that will also help me going into next year.”
Brown also played plenty of minutes alongside first-round pick Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, another athletic wing player with the ability to play lockdown defense.
The experience left Brown excited about the potential for them to be a difference-making duo defensively.
“I see us locking down a lot of players in the future, and I see a lot of promise for both of us on the defensive end,” Brown said. “It’s just about going out there and contributing on offense for both of us.”