TORONTO — Rookie Egor Dëmin finally made his debut on Friday. The Nets and their fans had to like what they saw.
After missing training camp and most of the preseason with a foot injury, Dëmin got his first taste of NBA competition. He looked like he belonged — and like the best of the Nets’ trio of first-round point guards.
“He was outstanding,” coach Jordi Fernández said after a 119-114 loss to Toronto. “There will be things he will continue to work on. We have to continue to build him up physically to get more minutes. But I’m very happy with his presence, how composed he was, how he talked to his teammates, all those things. And he made it look easy.”
“He shot the ball every time he was open or half-open, got to the free-throw line and rebounded. He got five rebounds, made nice plays at the rim. It was good.”
Dëmin also had 14 points on 3-for-5 shooting, including 2-for-3 from deep, with an assist, a block and two turnovers. He went 6-of-7 from the charity stripe, an indication of how well he handled the Raptors’ length and physicality. The latter bodes well and gives confidence in the future.
“Yes, 100 percent. I’ve been told a lot about the Raptors being one of the most physical and longest teams from a pressure point of view almost the entire game, and how annoying they are,” Dëmin said. “I don’t want to say I was scared, but I was very aware of what to expect. But I also couldn’t understand what to expect in my first game… so I’m just happy that we went through this and had this experience. It’s a huge lesson for all of us, and I can’t wait for the start of the season.”
It was a solid start for Dëmin to finish plus-1 in 18:47 of encouraging minutes off the bench. He looked more comfortable than Ben Saraf and Nolan Traore despite the lack of training camp.
The 19-year-old from BYU had been out with a plantar fascia tear that he revealed did not occur during the Las Vegas Summer League, but before June’s draft.
“It was an injury of the time. It kept getting worse and worse,” Dëmin told The Post before the match. “It started quite early. It was already in the preliminary training. It was something different, and then it evolved into something new.”
The injury caused Dëmin to be sidelined during the finals of the summer competition until the early stages of the training camp. He wasn’t cleared to play five-on-five until the Nets were in China.
The 6-foot-1 Russian admits it’s an injury he and the Nets will have to deal with over the course of his rookie season.
“Definitely. Probably. It will probably take some time before we really get rid of everything,” Dëmin said. “But as long as that is not the case [dangerous]As long as it’s safe for me to play, I’m good to go.”
Dëmin said he doesn’t expect any type of cleanup procedure or surgery will be needed after the season. For now, he’s just focusing on staying on top of his teammates and adjusting to the NBA physicality.
But once the agile teenager does that, he can unlock his passing potential.
“Oh yeah, he’s solid. He’s going to be really good,” Michael Porter Jr. said. to The Post. “If he can translate all those point guard skills to the pros, he’s going to be a problem given his size.
“He’s making the right reads and the right plays. So I know it might take some time to get used to the physical nature of the point guard position in the NBA, but once he gets the hang of it, he’ll be really, really good.”
He has already impressed his teammates.
“He was great. He was great. Obviously it’s the preseason, but he was good for his first game,” Cam Thomas told The Post. “We’ll see what happens in Charlotte, but it was certainly a great start for him.”
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