As expected, the Nets brought back restricted free agent Trendon Watford.
After The Post reported on June 29 that Brooklyn had made Watford a qualifying offer, the 23-year-old agreed to it on Tuesday, ensuring his return.
Watford, a teammate of Cam Thomas at Louisiana State, signed a one-year, $2.7 million contract this season and is set to become an unrestricted free agent next summer.
Brooklyn is about $8 million under the luxury tax threshold, and general manager Sean Marks and owner Joe Tsai are determined to stay under that threshold in order to reset the punitive repeat player tax.
It is unclear how new manager Jordi Fernandez plans to use Watford.
But last season, the Nets used him as a secondary playmaker and even a backup point guard late in the season, despite his size at 6-foot-9, 241 pounds.
Watford played in 63 games, including two starts, averaging 6.9 points, 3.1 rebounds and 1.3 assists per game, but he got his chance when interim manager Kevin Ollie deployed some of the younger players late in the game.
The Birmingham, Alabama native has scored in double figures eight times in his last 11 games.
In the final stretch, he averaged 12.9 points, 5.7 rebounds and 2.2 assists in 25.4 minutes per game while shooting 54.1 percent from the field and 44.0 percent from three-point range.
While Noah Clowney and Jalen Wilson are playing their rookie seasons, the third member of Brooklyn’s 2023 class had his debut season cut short by season-ending foot surgery, with just two cameos and 24 minutes played.
But now, 19-year-old Darik Whitehead is playing in summer league with his second-year teammates in Las Vegas and says he feels healthy for the first time in years.
“For the first time since high school, I feel like I can go out there and be myself,” Whitehead told reporters on Tuesday.
Whitehead, a Newark native, arrived two years ago as one of the top recruits in the country out of Montverde Academy. His lone season at Duke was interrupted by injury and his rookie season with Long Island of the G League was cut short. He has had three lower leg surgeries in the past year and a half.
