BROOKLYN – News flash: Great players want to play with other great players.
Having talented teammates makes your job easier and more enjoyable. It gives your team a chance to win games every night, even when you’re not at your best.
That’s why Kevin Garnett was willing to accept a trade to Boston five years ago, why LeBron James left Cleveland for Miami, why Carmelo Anthony had his sights set on New York, and why Chris Paul was happy to move to L.A. last December. It’s also why Dwight Howard has been begging for a trade to Brooklyn.
Howard isn’t coming to Brooklyn, but Deron Williams is, because Brooklyn Nets general manager Billy King got him another great player to play with.
Williams and Joe Johnson aren’t besties and they’ve never played on a U.S. National Team together. They didn’t plan or scheme their way into the same lineup. But they sure looked happy to have each other as teammates as they were introduced as “Brooklyn’s Backcourt” at Borough Hall on Friday.
Williams has said that he was close to leaving the Nets to sign with the Dallas Mavericks, who have a star power forward that he could have teamed up with. But then King pulled off the trade for Johnson, a move that Williams called “the deciding factor.” (more…)
“What’s happening?” Williams said while laughing as a crowd of gathered around him on the sideline before USA Basketball’s training camp practice at UNLV. “What about Dwight? I don’t know anything. I just hear rumors and speculation.”
Whatever potential deal is concocted to unite Williams, Howard, Joe Johnson and Gerald Wallace as the Brooklyn Nets’ version of the Big 3 (plus one) is fine by Williams. He’s just not going to worry himself about the details in the meantime. He said it’s been two weeks since he’s spoken with Howard, another stretching of the truth.
But Williams is covering his bases right now. He’s not talking like Howard is in the fold, while also making it clear that the addition of Howard will bring nothing but good things.
“There have been a lot of rumors over the past year where he is concerned, so early on I concerned myself with it,” Williams said, “but now you just have to let it play out. And whatever happens, happens. I think we’ll have a good team without him and I think we’ll have an even better team with him. But the situation is tricky.”
Williams said he feels for Howard, having to go through the endless speculation surrounding his future, because they are friends.
“You want to see it end one way or another,” Williams said. “It’s tough on guys being in trade rumors. I know definitely know it’s tough on Brook [Lopez]. I’m happy with him as my teammate, he’s a promising young player.” (more…)
The Brooklyn Nets are going to have a news conference later this week. Sitting next to general manager Billy King at the podium will be Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, and the Nets’ center.
Right now, we don’t know if that center will be Brook Lopez (re-signed like Williams and Gerald Wallace) or Dwight Howard (acquired via trade like Johnson). But things may be leaning toward the latter, according to a pair of reports that hit the interwebs on Sunday night.
Both ESPN and Yahoo! say that the Nets and Orlando Magic are making progress on a deal that would send Howard to Brooklyn to form a new Big Four with Williams, Johnson and Wallace.
The Magic are portraying patience in making a deal for Howard, but have a strong distaste for engaging in a prolonged process that drags into the summer. From new general manager Rob Hennigan through Orlando ownership, the Magic want to find the best possible deal for Howard soon and cut ties with him, sources said.
As Orlando sorts through the offers, Howard’s potential destination is increasingly looking like the Nets, sources said.
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As much as Hennigan prefers to send Howard to a Western Conference team, the Magic keep coming back to the Nets as the best, safest package. Howard’s preferred trade partner – Brooklyn – has pushed into overdrive in offering up trade scenarios and options for the Magic, sources said. For now, Orlando prefers Nets restricted free-agent center Brook Lopez as a centerpiece player over having its pick of the Houston Rockets’ roster, sources said. (more…)
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – We’ve had our fun at his expense in the past.
In Philadelphia, when he bet on guys that didn’t end up living up to the hype, he was roasted. His predecessor, Rod Thorn, chased superstars LeBron James and Chris Bosh, only to come up empty. King continued the futility after Thorn helped the Nets hire him as his replacement, chasing Carmelo Anthony and others only to come up empty, and get roasted once again by those of us paid to grade such things.
But while you’re preparing your holiday feast and celebrating the nation’s birthday this afternoon and night, you need to toast Brooklyn Nets general manager Billy King.
He is the picture of perseverance on this day, a testament to the power of positive thinking and the model for ambitious NBA executives for refusing to accept defeat (and yes, it certainly helps to have a billionaire owner like Mikhail Prokhorov willing to take the risks to build a winner).
King’s calculations when he traded for Williams have paid off handsomely. If he’s somehow able to pull off the trade for Dwight Howard, which is still a longshot, he’ll be the early leader to succeed Larry Bird as the NBA’s Executive of the Year. The fact that Howard has made a trade demand with the desired destinations list of only the Nets is another feather for King’s hat.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – The Portland Trail Blazers got the No. 6 pick in the Draft (point guard Damian Lillard) in that trade with the New Jersey Nets last season for Gerald Wallace. And now Wallace is closing in on his prize, a reported $40 million from the Brooklyn Nets.
The deal for Wallace was expected when he opted out of the final year of his deal last to become a free agent, with the express intent of signing a new deal to remain with the Nets.
Though Williams is the most important player in the Nets plans this summer, King has plenty of other work to do. The Nets entered free agency with six players on their roster for next season and roughly $40 million in salary-cap space.
EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ –Billy King is now general manager of the Brooklyn (formerly New Jersey) Nets. How long he’ll stay in that position will likely be determined by what happens in the next two weeks.
His job is likely on the line, with little margin for error and a big window for just how good the Nets can be over the next few years. Maybe they’ll have Deron Williams and Dwight Howard. Maybe they’ll have neither. Maybe they’ll have just Williams and a supporting cast that can compete for the fourth or fifth spot in the Eastern Conference.
Officially, Williams has declined his player option for next season. He has been working out at the Nets’ practice facility, visited the Barclays Center this month, and even popped his head into King’s press conference on Wednesday.
Nets coach Avery Johnson was reportedly at Williams’ private birthday celebration Tuesday night. And given all the signs, it would be pretty cold-blooded for Williams to go elsewhere. But with less than four days before free agency begins, there are no indications that he’s made a final decision.
“I’m not over confident,” King said when asked about his feelings toward the possibility of Williams re-signing. “I’m not any less confident. I just feel pretty good.” He added that the team has “contingency plans” if Williams signs with another team.
“When something happens, you don’t look back,” King said. “You go on to the next play, good or bad.”
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – You could feel the vibe from 3,000 miles away.
That energy was real.
The Portland Trail Blazers were on the verge of something special with one of the league’s best young executives, Kevin Pritchard, best young coaches, Nate McMillan, two new young stars, Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge, already in the fold, and the new No. 1 pick, Greg Oden, smiling on the stage in front of a sea of thousands and the “Welcome To Rip City” banner hanging behind him.
Nearly five years later, Aldridge is the only one left amid the rubble that was the Trail Blazers’ championship blueprint. Pritchard was the first to go, fired on draft night two years ago. Injuries forced Roy into retirement in December, McMillan was fired Thursday and Oden’s injury-plagued career with the Trail Blazers (82 games is all they have to show for his actual game time in uniform) came to an end later that evening when he was waived.
This isn’t yet another savage poke at an already wounded rabid and wickedly loyal fan base in Portland. On the contrary, they have been the one constant and positive force surrounding this cautionary tale. Their plight is a reminder for any fan base, and the franchise they love, out there dreaming about what could be. The future is always now in the NBA, right now, in fact!
And if you operate with any other theories in mind, you do so at your own risk.
HANG TIME NEW JERSEY BUREAU – General manager Billy King and the New Jersey Nets didn’t take long to recover from the loss of Brook Lopez, acquiring Mehmet Okur from the Utah Jazz for a second round pick in 2015.
Okur is paid $10.9 million this season, a salary which the Nets are able to absorb with their remaining cap space. They still have their $2.5 million room exception, which they’ll use to sign DeShawn Stevenson on Friday.
Since Okur’s deal is expiring, the Nets retain all of their 2012 cap space reserved for Dwight Howard (and have a lot of expiring deals to include in a trade before the deadline). Further, since the Jazz were willing to let the center go for nothing but salary relief, King didn’t have to give up any of the first rounders he has earmarked for a potential Howard deal. (Reports had the Nets sending five first-round picks out in a deal that fell through last week.)
Want to know how we got where we are with Dwight Howard and his future? Just turn the calendar back two days …
It all started with reports of a meeting between Howard, his associates and Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov and GM Billy Kingin Miami on Thursday night. ESPN.com reported the meeting and if such a discussion did take place, it was a clear violation of NBA tampering rules.
By lunchtime on the East coast (and well before teams opened training camp doors), news had already come out (courtesy of our own tireless David Aldridge) that the Magic might file tampering charges against two unnamed teams for illegally talking with its star big man. By the end of the night on free-agency’s first full day, Howard’s status in Orlando (or elsewhere for that matter) remained squarely in the crosshairs.
ESPN.com reported earlier Friday that Howard would soon request a trade to New Jersey. Later that same day, Howard’s agent, Dan Fegan, denied that his client had illegal contact with teams in an interview with ESPN The Magazine. Worth noting, too, is that Magic GM Otis Smith said he granted Fegan permission to speak to the Nets about a deal involving Howard. Fegan didn’t deny that he and Howard had spoken over the phone with the Nets, but did deny any face-to-face meetings. We’ll let Fegan speak for himself, as he did to The Magazine and other media outlets:
“I read reports today of a meeting between Dwight Howard, his representatives and the New Jersey Nets which claimed, according to the story’s anonymous sources, that such a meeting violated the NBA’s tampering policies. This story is clearly inaccurate with respect to tampering claims and other facts. Tampering doesn’t apply once a team grants permission for a player and/or his representatives to make contact with another team. The Magic have given us permission to have contact with several teams in order for Dwight to explore his options. I most definitely had contact with the teams I was granted permission to speak with. Since we had permission to have contact with several teams the report of possible tampering is undeniably false.
“In addition, the report that Dwight was supposed to be traded today is also inaccurate. In fact, so many of the facts reported in today’s story are inaccurate, it is difficult to separate the facts from fiction, so I’m not even going to bother to address the other inaccuracies.”
The Sunday Read is a look at the best Sunday columns around the NBA.
New Jersey Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov and general manager Billy Kingseemed to make it clear on Wednesday. The Nets were walking away from the Carmelo Anthony situation, and they weren’t looking back.
So Prokhorov took a defiant stand. For a day, he made the Nets appear powerful. He made it seem like his team didn’t need Carmelo and all the trade stress. He even took some swipes at the frustrating process of setting up a meeting with Melo — “Maybe he sent me an e-mail, but I don’t have a computer,” the billionaire said. “Maybe the carrier pigeon got lost.” (I can see Prok- horov’s yes man laughing uproariously at the joke, explaining to his boss, like Kenny Bania would on “Seinfeld” — “That carrier pigeon stuff was gold, Proky! Gold!”)
But let’s look at the Nets. They’re moving to Brooklyn in 2012. They desperately need a face of the franchise, a transcendent player who will help the team win — and help the team sell seats and suites.
Melo, meanwhile, wants to play in New York, and the Nuggets all-star admitted he would, indeed, meet with Prokhorov — thus allowing the Nets to make their sales pitch.
And now, if the Nets are truly out of the picture, the Nuggets could, theoretically, move Melo to the Knicks. This would crush Proky. Not only would the Knicks become one of basketball’s best rosters, but they would then completely overshadow the Nets — even more than they already do.
Jonathan Givony, writing for The New York Times, provides an update on Ricky Rubio, who has seemingly regressed since being drafted by the Timberwolves.
Mary Schmitt Boyer of The Plain Dealerprofiles Earl Boykins, who has defied the odds (and his size) to last 12 seasons in the NBA.
