The NBA trade deadline is tomorrow (Thursday, February 18th) at 3:00 pm EST and the Nets, who are currently 14-40, have yet to make any trades. Considering that, as of right now, they don’t have a general manager, that makes sense. However, per a report from the incomparable Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports’ The Vertical, Brooklyn may make a hire soon.
The Brooklyn Nets have offered the job of general manager to San Antonio Spurs assistant GM Sean Marks, league sources tell @TheVertical.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojVerticalNBA) February 17, 2016
Marks, who is highly respected by both San Antonio general manager R.C. Buford and coach Gregg Popovich, played in the NBA for 12 seasons and won a championship with the Spurs in 2005. He is currently San Antonio’s assistant GM but has been an assistant coach for the Spurs during his tenure with the organization which started in 2013.
He’s a relatively late addition to the Brooklyn GM hunt, which, up until this point, included Nuggets assistant GM Arturas Karnisovas, Rockets executive vice president of basketball operations Gersson Rosas and longtime NBA executive Bryan Colangelo.
The catch with Marks is that the Spurs don’t really want him to leave for Brooklyn, but, since the offer is already on the table, it’s up to Marks to make the final decision. If he does decide to take the Nets’ GM job, it may mean that Brooklyn’s next head coach is current San Antonio assistant coach Ettore Messina, per the New York Daily News‘ Frank Isola.
If Sean Marks is the guy there is a very good chance that Spurs assistant coach Ettore Messina, via Italy, could be the Nets head coach.
— Frank Isola (@FisolaNYDN) February 17, 2016
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsWhy Messina, outside of he and Marks’ Spurs connection? Well, he has coached CSKA Moscow — Mikhail Prokhorov’s pet Russian team — two different times and was a candidate for the Nets’ job two summers ago when Lionel Hollins was hired. Messina and Prokhorov are very close and the former Lakers assistant seemed like a good fit for Brooklyn even before the news of the team’s interest in Marks was reported. Unless a deal with Marks, or a mystery candidate, gets completed in the next 24 hours or so, the Nets won’t be very active at this year’s trade deadline, even though they have some pieces — such as Joe Johnson, Thaddeus Young and Brook Lopez — who are valued around the league. Johnson, with a max contract that expires after this season, could potentially be bought out by the Nets — and then signed in-season by a contending team — if he isn’t moved by the deadline. But, the team would like to get at least some assets, even if it’s just a second round pick, for Johnson in a trade instead of paying him to play somewhere else. The Miami Heat are reportedly interested in the seven-time All-Star. On the other hand, Young and Lopez just signed long-term deals — four and three years respectively — with Brooklyn this past summer and could return serious value for the Nets. According to Isola, both the Raptors and Clippers could look to land Young as they gear up for the playoffs.
Raptors and Clippers are both interested in Brooklyn’s Thaddeus Young. — Frank Isola (@FisolaNYDN) February 16, 2016
The market for Lopez, who has seemingly been on the verge of going to another team at every trade deadline in his career, is more murky than that of Young, but there are many NBA team that would benefit from his skillset right now. But, there haven’t been many rumors involved involving him and without a defined leader in the Brooklyn front office as of this posting, there probably won’t be until tomorrow, if there are any. Obviously, with the deadline, moves can be reported and finalized with almost no warning, so the relative lack of news surrounding potential Brooklyn trades may not mean much. Things change quickly, and we’ll be sure to update you on here and on Twitter (@BrooklynBalling) throughout the next two days.
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Also, this isn’t trade deadline-related but at 1:00 pm EST this afternoon, the Nets will officially unveil their new practice facility in Brooklyn. The HSS Training Center (HSS referring to the Hospital for Special Surgery, a team partner) will allow the team to focus all of its operations in Brooklyn, severing any ties to New Jersey, where it has been practicing for the 3+ years since the move to the Barclays Center.
#Nets fans, you can watch today’s grand opening of the #HSSTrainingCenter live at 1pm on https://t.co/5rBsKOLsJA. pic.twitter.com/2jDlB9jeEM
— Brooklyn Nets (@BrooklynNets) February 17, 2016
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