Center Nic Claxton has agreed to a four-year, $100 million contract to return to the Brooklyn Nets, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
Nic Claxton intends to a sign a four-year, $100M to return to the Brooklyn Nets, sources tell ESPN.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 26, 2024
The deal came down a day after the Nets agreed to send Mikal Bridges to the New York Knicks in exchange for a haul of draft picks and Bojan Bogdanović.
A second-round pick out of Georgia in the 2019 NBA Draft, Claxton has developed from a lightly used reserve into one of the most productive defensive big men in the NBA over the course of five pro seasons. The 25-year-old averaged 12.3 points, 9.6 rebounds, 2.3 blocks and 2 assists in 29.8 minutes per game in Brooklyn over the past two seasons across 147 appearances, all starts.
At 6-foot-11 with a 7-foot-2.5-inch wingspan and a 9-foot-2 standing reach, Claxton has become one of the league’s premier shot-swatters. He finished in the top 10 in blocks per game and total blocks — and in the top five in block percentage, which measures how large a share of the opposition’s offensive possessions you end with a rejection — in each of the past two seasons. Only Brook Lopez (382) logged more blocks than Claxton (335) in that span; opponents shot just 52.3% against him at the rim in 2022-23, sixth best among 100 defenders to contest at least 200 up-close tries and 54.4% in 2023-24, 13th in a 113-defender sample.
What separates Claxton from a lot of other shot-blocking 5s, though, is his ability to switch screens and comfortably guard smaller players on the perimeter. While his slight 215-pound frame can limit his effectiveness against the league’s burlier bigs, the lithe and lanky Claxton has the foot speed, lateral agility and athletic burst to be able to stick with nimbler guards and wings in space. He’s adept at preventing playmakers from creating open looks, funneling them into traffic inside and using his length to recover and contest from behind:
Nets say screw it, no more doubling/trapping Luka, let’s just put Nic Claxton on him.
On the first two possessions, Clax forces an airball and then punches a shot off the glass: pic.twitter.com/3ETAtYmgCz
— Lucas Kaplan (@LucasKaplan_) February 7, 2024
Claxton occupies a more circumscribed role on the offensive end, using just 15.6% of Brooklyn’s offensive possessions last season and holding the ball for about a minute and a half per game, on average. But while Claxton doesn’t pose too serious a scoring threat unless he’s within arm’s length of the rim, he’s an able participant in the two-man game, finishing in the 90th percentile in scoring efficiency for a pick-and-roll roll man in 2022-23 and tying for 14th in screen assists per game last season despite Brooklyn’s significant lack of on-ball playmaking. And the NBA’s leader in field-goal percentage during the 2022-23 season has the hops and hands to finish what’s served up to him at a high level:
Nice adjustment from Vaughn. Brings Cam Thomas in for DFS (the old starting lineup), forcing Sengun to now guard Clax in the PnR. They attack it the first play, and Claxton gets a lob: pic.twitter.com/kR10vYEgyK
— Lucas Kaplan (@LucasKaplan_) January 4, 2024
Two seasons ago, when he was manning the middle for a star-studded Nets team with its sights set on title contention, some pundits pegged Claxton as a future Defensive Player of the Year candidate; a disastrous couple of years in Brooklyn took the bloom off that rose a bit. Relatively little of that downturn — marked by superstar defections, head-coach firings, slides down the standings and rapidly descending vibes — had to do with Claxton, though, and a 25-year-old big who can switch 1-through-5, protect the rim and serve as an engine in the two-man game profiles as a pretty valuable piece. And now, we know just how valuable.
