Ben Saraf's rookie summer has not silenced the skeptics. In a review of the Brooklyn Nets' crowded 2025 draft class, The Athletic's John Hollinger singled out the Israeli guard as one of the picks still searching for answers, well over a year after Brooklyn used five first-round selections in a single draft.
"Saraf's unconventional left-handed game showed some flashes, but he still isn't a threat from outside and only rarely manages to get all the way to the rim," Hollinger wrote, in Hebrew translation carried by ONE, as part of a wider verdict that the Nets "whiffed" on most of that draft class outside of Egor Demin.
The 20-year-old Saraf, taken 26th overall in 2025 out of Ratiopharm Ulm in Germany, spent this summer trying to build on a rookie season in Brooklyn. Across Summer League, split between the California Classic and Las Vegas, he averaged 10 points, 2.5 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.2 steals a game, shooting 37.3 percent from the field and 33.3 percent from three.
He came off the bench in four of his six Summer League outings, a sign the Nets are still working out where he fits in a backcourt that has grown suddenly congested. Hollinger's larger complaint was about efficiency: Saraf shot 14 of 36 from three-point range in that stretch, numbers that read better in isolation than they felt on the floor, where defenses rarely bent to respect his jumper.
Hollinger's critique lands at an awkward moment for Saraf, who now has to fight for minutes in Brooklyn's training camp against Mikell Brown Jr., Egor Demin and Nolan Traore — all part of the same 2025 draft haul, and all seen as needing a bigger role to justify their positions. Coach Jordi Fernández will use camp to sort out a rotation that, on paper, has more ball-handlers than playing time to go around.
None of it is fatal for Saraf, who was drafted as much for his size, vision and passing instincts as for his shot. But Hollinger's framing — flashes without a finished product — captures where the Israeli guard sits heading into his second NBA season: promising enough to matter, unproven enough to still be judged.
