Nearly 40 players and countless draft picks–even draft rights to foreign players who may never come to the US again–switched teams on Thursday as the NBA’s trade deadline commenced, making for an insanely crazy day, even for the league’s annual crazy day.
However, one player who did not switch teams was Brook Lopez, who has been rumored to go to multiple teams just this season and even more in seasons past. The Nets’ center, although he may have been minutes away from heading to Oklahoma City to play with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, is still in Brooklyn even as Kevin Garnett is with his old Minnesota team and Thaddeus Young is in New York.
Jarrett Jack and Joe Johnson (even Deron Williams) were also thrown around in various rumors, and at different times, were each almost sent to the Pistons. Earlier in the year, the Nets and Kings were reportedly close to agreeing on a deal that would land Williams in Sacramento for a package of young players and picks.
Yet, as the season winds down, all four of those guys are still with Brooklyn as Garnett–the last semblance of the Nets’ blockbuster with the Celtics a few summers ago–is gone. That leaves the Nets, when healthy, a presumed starting five of Williams/Jack, Johnson, Young, Plumlee (maybe) and Lopez. Not too bad if you ask, especially with Williams/Jack, Alan Anderson, Bojan Bogdanovic and crew coming off the bench.
So it is the end of the world that the Nets only ending up trading the aging and soon-to-be-retiring KG away? I’m not so sure. Obviously, it would have been nice for the team to hedge its future bets by getting young players on cap-friendly deals, plus a bunch of first-round draft picks, for Lopez and Johnson. But, the fact that the Nets didn’t do that just means they’re in a much better spot right now to compete for postseason positioning.
After Brooklyn’s Friday night win over the hapless Lakers–and the Heat’s (to New Orleans) and Hornets’ (to Oklahoma City) losses Saturday–the Nets are the No. 8 seed in the East and just a half-game behind No. 7 Miami. With over 30 games left to play, those standings will definitely change. If the Nets can play good ball, beat the teams they’re better than and maybe some they’re worse than, for the next two months, one of the last two slots will be theirs, especially considering the Heat are without Chris Bosh for the rest of the year.
Who knows how good Thaddeus Young can be for this team, but the odds say he’ll only make things better, not worse. And if the rest of the core can stay healthy–looking at you Deron–Brooklyn can be a tough team to beat. The Nets are much deeper than the other teams they’re competing with and that just might be enough to launch them into the postseason, even though they didn’t make nearly as many moves at the deadline as expected.
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