This year’s draft is a far different one for Nets director of player personnel Gregg Polinsky than any from the past several seasons.
After spending recent years hoping to find pieces to build the foundation of a playoff team, Polinsky — who has been with the Nets since 1999 and is in his fifth year in his current position — instead enters the final few days of preparation for this year’s draft looking to try and find pieces to compliment a core group that won 49 games last season and earned the fourth playoff seed in the Eastern Conference.
“You’re still looking at the talent level, and what they bring to the table, but also how they do fit with your group,” Polinsky said at the completion of a recent draft workout. “[But] you’re also looking at your core guys, too, and their age.
“That’s where a young guy may fall to us, and maybe in two years this guy can get groomed under some of our veterans, and now he is able to step in. That’s why when people say, ‘They’re going to take this kind of guy’ … it really depends on how all of this falls.
“There’s so many possibilities that it’s not just lining them up, which we do, but it’s also when we line them up, which guys have fallen as you’ve ranked them, and what their promise is going forward.”
Figuring out the promise of the players in this draft class will be exactly what Polinsky and the Nets’ scouts will be doing starting today, when they convene to begin several days of combing through the available prospects and ranking them in preparation for Thursday’s draft.
Armed with the 22nd pick in what has been universally described as a weak draft, one would think that would mean there is little value to be had for a team like the Nets — who already have an established roster full of talent and are picking in the latter part of the first round.
But though this year’s draft lacks the kind of surefire star power last year’s did with Anthony Davis and next year’s does with Andrew Wiggins, among others, Polinsky thinks there’s plenty of value to be had, that the pool is filled with players who can become quality role players — if not more.
“I don’t think it’s as talented as ,let’s say, if you just project out on what you’ve seen with your eyes, as next year,” Polinsky said. “[That thought’s] out there, but I think it’s true. It’s a fair statement that [next year is] going to be a better draft.
“But, with that being said, that’s the fun of it, is trying to see if you can shake the sand and find a nugget.”
And for the Nets, because of the way their team is set up, the focus for Polinsky and his team of scouts will be to present general manager Billy King with some options who, more likely than not, can step in and contribute quickly to a veteran-laden team.
“The team’s that are, maybe because of their record, they have a good core to them … I would say we’re one of them,” he said. “We have a foundation to us now, and we can draft now with, in mind, what our team looks like and what Billy sees as potential for free agency and make comparisons to maybe a rookie versus a free agent based on the money we’ll have.
“Those are all things that, when we get done with this next week, we’ll have sorted through all of those things.”
tbontemps@nypost.com