Brooklyn Nets: Meet Isaia Cordinier, even though we likely won’t

As part of the deal that sent Jeremy Lin to the Atlanta Hawks, the Brooklyn Nets acquired the rights to 2016 second-round pick Isaia Cordinier. Who is he?

As the Brooklyn Nets were shaking and baking the trade wires late Thursday night in Las Vegas, the Nets sent Jeremy Lin and a 2025 second-round pick to the Atlanta Hawks in exchange for the rights to 2016 second-round pick Isaia Cordinier.

The Hawks also have the right to swap second-round picks with the Nets in 2023, according to Michael Scotto of The Athletic.

Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN was the first to break the news about Brooklyn acquiring Cordinier’s rights, with an addendum:

In the Jeremy Lin deal, Atlanta sends the Nets the rights to 2016 second-round pick Isaia Cordinier (you'll probably never see him). Atlanta gets a 2025 second-round pick and the right to swap picks with Nets in 2023.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 13, 2018

So who is Isaia Cordinier? Glad you asked, even if you didn’t.

The 21-year-old shooting guard was born in France and has been with the Antibes Sharks in the French LNB Pro A circuit.

However, Cordinier missed all of last season after undergoing surgery on both knees to attempt to fix a problem the young wing had been having with chronic tendiitis, per Orazio Cuachi of European basketball site Sportando.

Hawks draftee Isaia Cordinier will undergo surgery on both knees to solve a tendinitis problem, as he told to @lequipe . Cordinier is expected to miss 4-9 months of action. #NBA
— Orazio Francesco Cauchi (@paxer89) January 11, 2018

The last time Cordinier played competitively was in Las Vegas with Atlanta’s Summer League club in 2017. In four games, he averaged 4.3 points, 3.3 rebounds and 2.0 assists in 14.3 minutes per game on .300/2-for-6/3-for-4 shooting.

Cordinier returned to Antibes in 2016-17 after beginning his pro career with the club in 2012. In 30 games, he averaged 6.5 points and 2.8 rebounds in 23.0 minutes per game on .357/.230/.700 shooting.

Those shooting percentages start to paint the picture as to why Wojnarowski was so pessimistic about the kid’s NBA future.

Antibes was in France’s second-division LNB Pro B when Cordinier debuted with them in 2012-13 and was promoted to LNB Pro A in 2013-14.

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He didn’t play a lot, just six games total over those first two seasons, playing a total of 29 minutes.

In 2014-15, he went back to the second division with ALM Evreux and averaged 4.9 points and 2.1 rebounds in 14.7 minutes per game while shooting .345/.250/.792.

Cordinier entered the draft on the heels of a much stronger showing in 2015-16, with Denain-Voltaire, also in the LNB Pro B, where he averaged 10.8 points, 3.6 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.2 steals in 23.4 minutes per game on .463/.404/.779 shooting.

However, his shooting numbers decreased drastically in 2016-17 against tougher competition in the Pro A circuit.

Cordinier got his first exposure to NBA-style basketball with the Hawks in the 2016 Summer League after Atlanta chose him with the 44th overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft.

In five games, Cordinier averaged 3.2 points, 1.4 rebounds and 1.0 steals in 16.6 minutes per game while shooting .250/2-for-8/4-for-8.

Per Draft Express, Cordinier is a rail-thin 6-foot-5 and 177 pounds, though Basketball-Reference.com has him at 6-foot-4 and 180 — still thin, just not quite so much.

In any event, it appears that at this point, he is a shooting guard with bad knees who is not that adept at shooting.

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He’ll be 22 in November, so there’s still time for him to develop, but at this point he joins Juan Pablo Vaulet in the draft-and-long-term-stash category.