TORONTO — Rookie Egor Dëmin finally made his debut Friday. The Nets and their fans had to be happy with what they saw.
After Dëmin missed training camp and most of the preseason with a foot injury, the teenager 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 excellent,” coach Jordi Fernández said after a 119-114 loss to Toronto. “There’s going to be things he’s going to keep working on. We’ve got to keep building him up physically to be able to sustain more minutes. … But I’m very happy with his presence, how composed he was, how he talked to his teammates, all those things. And made it look easy.
“He shot the ball every time he was open or halfway 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-of-5 shooting, including 2-of-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 buoys his confidence for the future.
“Yeah, 100 percent. I’ve been told a lot about the Raptors as one of the most physical and longest teams from the standpoint of pressure almost the whole game, and how pesky they are,” Dëmin said. “I don’t want to say I was scared, but I was super aware of what to expect. But I also couldn’t understand what to expect in my first game … so I’m just happy 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.”
For Dëmin, finishing plus-1 in 18:47 encouraging minutes off the bench was a solid start. He looked more comfortable than Ben Saraf and Nolan Traore despite the lack of a training camp.
The 19-year-old out of BYU had been out with a plantar fascia tear that he revealed didn’t occur at Las Vegas Summer League but before June’s draft.
“It was the injury of time. It was getting worse and worse and worse,” Dëmin told The Post before the game. “It started pretty early. It was in the pre-draft workouts already. It was a different thing, and then it evolved into something new.”
The injury sidelined Dëmin for the summer league finale all the way through the early stages of training camp. He didn’t get cleared for five-on-five until the Nets were in China.
The 6-foot-8 Russian admits it’s an injury that he and the Nets will have to monitor over the course of his rookie season.
“For sure. Probably. It’s going to take some time probably to really get rid of everything,” Dëmin said. “But as long as it’s not [dangerous], as long as it’s safe for me to play, I’m good to go.”
Dëmin said he doesn’t expect to require any sort of cleanup procedure or surgery after the season. For now, he’s just focused on getting up to speed with his teammates and adjusting to NBA physicality.
But once the lithe teen does that, he can unlock his passing potential.
“Oh, yeah, he’s solid. He’s going to be really good,” Michael Porter Jr. told The Post. “Positionally for his size, if he can translate all those point guard skills over to the pros, he’s going to be a problem.
“He makes the right reads and the right plays. So I know it may take time to deal with the physicality of the point guard position in the NBA, but once he gets the hang of it, he’s going to be really, really good.”
He’s already impressed teammates.
“He was great. He was great. Obviously, it’s preseason, but he was good for his first game,” Cam Thomas told The Post. “We’ll see what happens in Charlotte, but it was a great start for him, for sure.”
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