Drew Timme, who signed a multi-year deal with the Brooklyn Nets in March and had his contract option picked up at the end of June, will be joining the team’s Summer League roster in Las Vegas later this month. The former Gonzaga standout has already played in nine NBA games, but he is not taking anything for granted.
“I’m still trying to make it and stay in it,” Timme told CBS Sports in a recent interview. “It was cool to make it, but you know, it can also get taken away at any moment too, just as it got given. So you know, just trying to continue to work to stay in the league and do whatever it takes. That’s kind of where I’m at right now.”
Timme left Gonzaga as the program’s all-time leading scorer with 2,307 career points. He was also a leading part of the Zags’ 2021 NCAA Tournament team that made it to the championship game.
Timme, 24, went undrafted in 2023 but got an Exhibit 10 contract to keep developing at the professional level. Since then, Timme has worked on improving a few different areas of his game, particularly 3-point shooting — something he rarely did at Gonzaga.
“I’m a pretty good shooter now, so just continuing to work on that and continue building on it,” he said. “That’s the name of the game. Now you gotta be able to shoot the 3.”
Timme played in nine NBA games for the Nets, two of them as a starter, late in the 2024-25 season. His first game was on March 28 against the Los Angeles Clippers and he had a solid showing with an 11-point, 10-rebound double-double. However, it didn’t take long for him to experience his first welcome to the NBA moment.
“My first game we played the Clippers, and Kawhi Leonard just, I was dribbling the ball, and he just stole the ball from behind me,” Timme recounted. “But it was like a vacuum. He just engulfed it and I was like, ‘Yo!’ Because I thought I could maybe get the ball back. And then I saw it was him and I was like, ‘Oh, no. It’s a wrap.'”
The Nets lost that game, but Timme got 19 points a day later to help his team get a win over the Washington Wizards. His third NBA game was particularly special because he got a win in his home state of Texas against the Dallas Mavericks.
“I always dreamed of playing in the American Airlines Center as a kid, just ’cause I grew up a Mavs fan,” he said. “Obviously being from here and being able to play there and against the team I always grew up cheering for was pretty cool and surreal.”
Timme is spending much of the summer in Brooklyn, but when he is back in Texas he works out with his former high school coach, Marc Johnson, who is also his next door neighbor.
Although sometimes it feels like staying in the league is more difficult than getting in, Timme has plenty of people around him who can give him advice. There were 12 former Zags in an NBA roster through the 2024-25 season, and Timme said alumni such as Kelly Olynyk and Corey Kispert have helped him keep things in perspective.
“You got to stay true to who you are because that’s what got you here,” Timme said. “So you know, that’s huge, because when you get called up there’s a lot of voices, a lot of people telling you different things and pulling you in different directions. And I could see how it’s easy to kind of lose yourself in the race of it all, so those guys gave me some advice when we played against them.”
The 2025 Las Vegas Summer League will take place July 10-20, 2025 at the Thomas & Mack Center and Cox Pavilion. The Nets — who added five first-round picks in June’s draft — will play their first Summer League game on July 10 against the Thunder.
