Nets Make Deron Williams, Brook Lopez, Joe Johnson Available

[HMFFL]

The Brooklyn Nets have begun reaching out to teams to let them know that Deron Williams, Brook Lopez and Joe Johnson are all available via trade.

Sources say no trade is imminent involving any of the three players.



The Nets are looking to retool their roster after an 8-11 start to the season.

Sources insist that the Nets haven't abandoned their recent "win-now mentality" and aren't merely looking to dump salary. Brooklyn's hope, sources said, is eventually to construct a deal or two that bring back sufficient talent that enables the Nets remain a playoff team. http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/23 ... -Available

[ATL Boy]

Noone will touch those contracts. Billy King really screwed that team by trading away so many future picks for washed up old players, even if they suck they won't get anything out of it.

[Rip2137]

2 god awful contracts and one that wouldn't be so bad if not for it being attached to a walking injury. Yeah...lets see what they can haul in there...I am guessing nothing.

[atlantabbq99]

If they really wanted to, they could probably dump salary and maybe get an average young prospect in return, but i don't see them getting an all star back.

Maybe Houston or Lakers would be entertain the idea of adding Deron. A couple of teams might be willing to get Lopez. But they are stuck with Joe until his contract runs out.

[MaceCase]

Joe is probably the most valuable out of that trio. Deron is a noted coach killer with conditioning issues, bum ankles and the longest deal out of the trio. A lot was made about him bouncing back after finally addressing his ankles with off-season surgery but so far his per minute production is virtually identical to last season with a slight drop in overall efficiency. Throw in that he just so happens to play at the position with the greatest depth in the league and is making tens of millions more than the average PG and it's safe to say that BK will live and die with that deal.

Lopez is yet another talented big that looks to join the likes of Yao, Oden and Bynum as guys who just can't get healthy. You already know that you aren't going to get much of anything out of him on the defensive end or on the boards but his once prolific scoring has also taken a dip. He looks to be the unlikeliest of guys that gets moved.

Joe is Joe. Good size, creates his own shot, sweet jumper, decent defender but he has the highest dollar amount to match and disappears too often.

That said, these would be my best possible scenarios for each.

Joe + roster filler/cuts to New Orleans for Salmons, Gordon and Austin Rivers. New Orleans in their quest to be the 8th seed would probably throw in a future 1st to get this deal done too, they'd get rid of their disappointments and upgrade at the wing in addition to getting much needed shooting.

Deron to the Lakers for Nash and Lin. Despite Magic's proclamation for them to tank, the Lakers may still be too enamored with Deron's star appeal and think that he's the perfect backcourt mate for Kobe to help the Lakers resurge back to the playoffs. He'd be a definite upgrade for the Lakers PG situation and may even warrant the Nets asking for a 1st in return.

Brook.......can't think of anyone. If he's out for a season again maybe some cheap team might take a flyer on him with insurance paying most of his salary but I can't see anything right now. Perhaps Lopez to Minnesota for Pekovic, the Wolves look to cut two years off of Pekovic's deal as part of their rebuild and Brooklyn get's a slightly less injury prone C for their supposed win now desires.

[theatlfan]

Honestly, I figured this was a motivational ploy. "Start winning or well ship you to Siberia (or, the NBA equivalent thereof... [insert city to make fun of here])".

Unlike most I figure there's still a sucker who'd take on the contracts for a little value - there's one born every minute. I mean Rudy Gay got traded for young players that TOR retained and people actually like him now (for some reason) so anything is possible. I think Lopez would get some serious bites since fairly young bigs are so rare on the market and everyone has a plan to fix them. (A deal that is jumping to my mind here is WASH for (Gortat or Nene) and (Glen Rice Jr or Otto Porter) for Lopez - WASH gets a younger C to pair with Wall long term; BRK reconfigures with a C who does more than score and a wing prospect. BRK takes the worse contract, but I think that's kind of the point for them even discussing deals.)

JJ and Deron are interesting cases though. On the one hand, both have some value as a player. JJ still plays a lot (not quite at the iron man level he was for us, but much, much more than you'd expect for someone his age and mileage) who is big enough to man the SF position and talented enough to see the floor at SG; Deron still produces to the tune of 17/6.5 with a 40% 3PT%. Sure, both are overpaid, but as we've seen with JJ, that isn't an insurmountable obstacle - especially with JJ now that he's only got 1.5 years left. Also, when a trade target has an obvious destination like Deron to SAC (hole @ PG; bad contracts and expirings they can send out; duplication of prospects), sometimes those deals come faster than others. OTOH, The issue is that the large markets who could eat contracts like JJ's (LAL, NYK) aren't in the market for these contracts right now meaning that I don't see a team that would view these contracts as lightly as BRK which makes deals very, very hard to complete. Not saying it's impossible, but I do see more challenges to dealing JJ now than he would have been 2-3 years ago.

[Tricky_Kid]

I would take Gortat and his contract any day over injury prone C Brook Lopez. No reason for WAS to deal for such crappy player.

Btw Do you think Gortat's contract is bad? 12 m/year you will see even for 2-4 years He will be still at prime, cause his body wasn't exploated as much as f.e Milsap.

as a wiz fan I wouldn't switch true center Gortat on PF milsap cause:
a) He is better than Milsap
b) we have better PFs Nene and Hump

[Hawk Eye]

I would take Gortat and his contract any day over injury prone C Brook Lopez. No reason for WAS to deal for such crappy player.

Btw Do you think Gortat's contract is bad? 12 m/year you will see even for 2-4 years He will be still at prime, cause his body wasn't exploated as much as f.e Milsap.

as a wiz fan I wouldn't switch true center Gortat on PF milsap cause:
a) He is better than Milsap
b) we have better PFs Nene and Hump

MAYBE a case could be made to argue Gortat is more talented and better than Millsap but you are absolutely insane if you think Nene and Humphries are better than Millsap

[theatlfan]

I would take Gortat and his contract any day over injury prone C Brook Lopez. No reason for WAS to deal for such crappy player.

Btw Do you think Gortat's contract is bad? 12 m/year you will see even for 2-4 years He will be still at prime, cause his body wasn't exploated as much as f.e Milsap.

as a wiz fan I wouldn't switch true center Gortat on PF milsap cause:
a) He is better than Milsap
b) we have better PFs Nene and Hump

Eh, I guess I can understand the "stand by your man" attitude, but paying $13M to someone when they turn 34 and more when turn 35 is only a good deal for a select few athletes and I seriously doubt that is one of those elites. The "less mileage = more longevity" argument typically doesn't hold either - if the player wasn't athletic enough to demand minutes @ 23-25, then what makes you think he will after he loses a step in his early 30's? OTOH, give me a few billion $$ and maybe I'd pull out $13.5M to see a 35 yo sporting the 'Hawk.

I can understand the worry over Lopez and his foot, but we're also talking about a club who took on someone who was in remission for cancer. Obviously, WASH has Dr's that they trust very, very much. I would think that if those Dr's clear Lopez then WASH wouldn't be looking to pass on him for medical reasons. In terms of Lopez on the court, I would describe Lopez as a lot of things, but "crappy" ain't one of them. I'd actually be pretty happy if WASH didn't land Lopez - a Lopez (26 yo) / Wall (24) / Beal (21) combo would be pretty fearsome for the next 5+ years. Keeping Wall and Beal on teams with overpaid, OK bigs will keep me very, very happy as a Hawks fan.

As far as the Millsap versus Gortat, I guess you're entitled to your opinion, but I'll take the NBA Coaches who showed their opinion when they selected Millsap as an AS...

[atlantabbq99]

I would take Gortat and his contract any day over injury prone C Brook Lopez. No reason for WAS to deal for such crappy player.

Btw Do you think Gortat's contract is bad? 12 m/year you will see even for 2-4 years He will be still at prime, cause his body wasn't exploated as much as f.e Milsap.

as a wiz fan I wouldn't switch true center Gortat on PF milsap cause:
a) He is better than Milsap
b) we have better PFs Nene and Hump

Gortat is not on the trading block..... so who cares about that.

[PandaKidd]

The only player in that trio who could be dealt would be Joe because hes the only one producing, but he has that albatross around his neck of 25+ million per season

[Jamaaliver]

I have to be honest, I think JJ's contract has great value at this point because it's a year and a half from expiring. A team like DET or MIN that has high salaried players but a terrible record could get cap relief by dumping two or three solid (if underachieving) players and getting back a 7 time All Star still putting up solid production.

JJs contract was always a terrible deal. But I always figured he'd be easily tradable in the last year and a half of it.

JJ to DET for Smoove, Jennings and DJ Augustin sounds like a decent place to start.

DET gets a real SF to pair next to Monroe and Drummond. The contract falls of after one mroe season leaving them ample cap space to rebuild that team around Drummond moving forward.

Brooklyn gets younger and more athletic. They can move Jennings, or bring him off the bench as a Lou Williams-style 6th man.

If I run a bad team and need to dump salary at this point, Brooklyn is definitely the place I start looking.

[theatlfan]

I have to be honest, I think JJ's contract has great value at this point because it's a year and a half from expiring. A team like DET or MIN that has high salaried players but a terrible record could get cap relief by dumping two or three solid (if underachieving) players and getting back a 7 time All Star still putting up solid production.

JJs contract was always a terrible deal. But I always figured he'd be easily tradable in the last year and a half of it.

JJ to DET for Smoove, Jennings and DJ Augustin sounds like a decent place to start.

DET gets a real SF to pair next to Monroe and Drummond. The contract falls of after one mroe season leaving them ample cap space to rebuild that team around Drummond moving forward.

Brooklyn gets younger and more athletic. They can move Jennings, or bring him off the bench as a Lou Williams-style 6th man.

If I run a bad team and need to dump salary at this point, Brooklyn is definitely the place I start looking.

The one gotcha with DET is that I don't think they're looking to win this year. Sure, SVG never tanks, etc., but I think they'd just assume keep in line for a top 5 pick and feed it to the rebuilding process (same with LAL although at least they could be content knowing that Jennings probably wouldn't do much to help with winning). Would see this deal as much more likely if JJ was hurt, wasn't going to play this season, and BRK had something else to sweeten the pot.

(As an aside here: it wouldn't surprise me if DET ended up dealing a top 3 pick. With 2 of the clear cut top 3 prospects being Cs, they may find more value for the pick on the open market than seeing if they can pair one of them with Drummond. I mean Okafor and Drummond is Monroe / Drummond redux except Monroe is more versatile; maybe KAT / Drummond can work, but if you're turning KAT into a stretch 4, then you might be better off dealing the pick.)

[Jamaaliver]

I like JJ as much as anyone. But by no means do I believe his presence alone gets DETROIT to the playoffs after the dreadful start to their season.

DET trading for JJ is purely a salary dump (getting free of Smoove's contract a year early) and a chance to clear the locker room of two major knuckleheads (Smoove, Jennings).

But JJ is a solid veteran, a capable defender, a decent locker room guy, and a reliable scorer. Drummond would actually get to see what it's like playing with real NBA caliber personnel. Monroe would finally get to play beside an All Star. It'd be a real coup for both teams, really.

[theatlfan]

I like JJ as much as anyone. But by no means do I believe his presence alone gets DETROIT to the playoffs after the dreadful start to their season.

DET trading for JJ is purely a salary dump (getting free of Smoove's contract a year early) and a chance to clear the locker room of two major knuckleheads (Smoove, Jennings).

But JJ is a solid veteran, a capable defender, a decent locker room guy, and a reliable scorer. Drummond would actually get to see what it's like playing with real NBA caliber personnel. Monroe would finally get to play beside an All Star. It'd be a real coup for both teams, really.

Who said anything about Playoffs? The thing is that DET has the 2nd worst record in the NBA with 4 Ws right now, but there are 7 teams with between 5-7 Ws too. Even getting 3-4 more Ws means DET goes from most likely a top 3 pick (which is in the range for the elite to near elite prospects this season) to a pick around #10 (where stats say you should expect a solid starter). I mean, it'd be nice to shed Smoove's & Jennings' contracts, but that's a huge price to pay to do it. They'd be better off just waiting for the off-season and pulling the trigger on the exact same deal except then they would have Mudiay to run the point (or something else really good that comes out of having a top pick).