A petition for the firing Billy King (please help us)

[Paradise]

Please...you two are seriously going to argue that if we were picking 17th and the Hawks picking 20th, that there would be this massive outcry about the pick swap? Over 3 spots? In mid to early 20s of the draft? Come on now.

The reason, and the only reason...its such a big issue is that the Hawks are massively overachieving and we're massively underachieving.

It has to do with the reality alot of us hate this roster currently constructed and we can't tank. If we were 28-20 of course nobody would care because we would be firmly in the postseason but that isn't the case. We should be positioned 12th in the draft but instead we might miss the playoffs picking 30th.

Deron and Brook are injury prone. Joe is getting older and we have no alternative options which is all based off a stupid unecessary pick swap.

[Prokorov]

Please...you two are seriously going to argue that if we were picking 17th and the Hawks picking 20th, that there would be this massive outcry about the pick swap? Over 3 spots? In mid to early 20s of the draft? Come on now.

The reason, and the only reason...its such a big issue is that the Hawks are massively overachieving and we're massively underachieving.

It has to do with the reality alot of us hate this roster currently constructed and we can't tank. If we were 28-20 of course nobody would care because we would be firmly in the postseason but that isn't the case. We should be positioned 12th in the draft but instead we might miss the playoffs picking 30th.

Deron and Brook are injury prone. Joe is getting older and we have no alternative options which is all based off a stupid unecessary pick swap.

it doesnt really made if we pick 20th or 30th. what is ugly is if we pick 20th or 30th instead of 3rd if we give up a lotto pick.

if we make the playoffs, its moot.

either way, it shouldnt come to that, and we should have gained a pick in that trade. it was an overpay then and its an overpay now and its not hindsight as many felt this way at the time

[lkitt0804]

Please...you two are seriously going to argue that if we were picking 17th and the Hawks picking 20th, that there would be this massive outcry about the pick swap? Over 3 spots? In mid to early 20s of the draft? Come on now.

The reason, and the only reason...its such a big issue is that the Hawks are massively overachieving and we're massively underachieving.

It has to do with the reality alot of us hate this roster currently constructed and we can't tank. If we were 28-20 of course nobody would care because we would be firmly in the postseason but that isn't the case. We should be positioned 12th in the draft but instead we might miss the playoffs picking 30th.

Deron and Brook are injury prone. Joe is getting older and we have no alternative options which is all based off a stupid unecessary pick swap.

it doesnt really made if we pick 20th or 30th. what is ugly is if we pick 20th or 30th instead of 3rd if we give up a lotto pick.

if we make the playoffs, its moot.

either way, it shouldnt come to that, and we should have gained a pick in that trade. it was an overpay then and its an overpay now and its not hindsight as many felt this way at the time

The pick swap really isn't the point for me. It was just the tip of an awful trade. It's the fact that we had to give up our 2013 first rounder to go along with a bunch of expirings for a really bad contract. Sacramento wanted an asset (Plumlee) for them to take on Deron's negative contract. We should have gotten assets back instead of giving up asset because Joe was a negative value compared to his contract.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

[MrDollarBills]

Please...you two are seriously going to argue that if we were picking 17th and the Hawks picking 20th, that there would be this massive outcry about the pick swap? Over 3 spots? In mid to early 20s of the draft? Come on now.

The reason, and the only reason...its such a big issue is that the Hawks are massively overachieving and we're massively underachieving.

Speedy again, there was an objection to the pick swap well before this season. Why was our pick even included in a deal that was a salary relief move for the Hawks??

Who includes a PICK in a salary dump when you're the one getting bad salary dumped onto your books? Seriously???

[jeff1624]

Please...you two are seriously going to argue that if we were picking 17th and the Hawks picking 20th, that there would be this massive outcry about the pick swap? Over 3 spots? In mid to early 20s of the draft? Come on now.

The reason, and the only reason...its such a big issue is that the Hawks are massively overachieving and we're massively underachieving.

It doesn't matter what position they land. With the Hawks having the right to swap picks with us this year the pick loses most of its value which is why it wasn't used in the celtics trade and instead King had to deal one 3 years from now. Even if the pick was a 2 spot difference it still rendered the asset useless for other teams because there was no way our pick would ever be a high lotto pick.

[SpeedyG]

Please...you two are seriously going to argue that if we were picking 17th and the Hawks picking 20th, that there would be this massive outcry about the pick swap? Over 3 spots? In mid to early 20s of the draft? Come on now.

The reason, and the only reason...its such a big issue is that the Hawks are massively overachieving and we're massively underachieving.

It has to do with the reality alot of us hate this roster currently constructed and we can't tank. If we were 28-20 of course nobody would care because we would be firmly in the postseason but that isn't the case. We should be positioned 12th in the draft but instead we might miss the playoffs picking 30th.

Deron and Brook are injury prone. Joe is getting older and we have no alternative options which is all based off a stupid unecessary pick swap.

So yeah...that's the definition of hindsight.

[SpeedyG]

Please...you two are seriously going to argue that if we were picking 17th and the Hawks picking 20th, that there would be this massive outcry about the pick swap? Over 3 spots? In mid to early 20s of the draft? Come on now.

The reason, and the only reason...its such a big issue is that the Hawks are massively overachieving and we're massively underachieving.

It doesn't matter what position they land. With the Hawks having the right to swap picks with us this year the pick loses most of its value which is why it wasn't used in the celtics trade and instead King had to deal one 3 years from now. Even if the pick was a 2 spot difference it still rendered the asset useless for other teams because there was no way our pick would ever be a high lotto pick.

And when we reload in 2016 (hopefully with a better GM) and that pick 3 years from now ends up in the 20s, do we even care?

Again, almost everyone who looked at this trade when it was made paid little attention to the swap...mainly because universally, it was believed that the Hawks are the definition of a treadmill team and ours is at least a bit closer if not treadmill. It was essentially, viewed as a trade between a pick in 20-25 and another pick in the 18-25.

King overpaid for Joe, but the pick swap really wasn't a big deal...until now. To say anything otherwise is pure revisionist theory.

[Paradise]

Please...you two are seriously going to argue that if we were picking 17th and the Hawks picking 20th, that there would be this massive outcry about the pick swap? Over 3 spots? In mid to early 20s of the draft? Come on now.

The reason, and the only reason...its such a big issue is that the Hawks are massively overachieving and we're massively underachieving.

It has to do with the reality alot of us hate this roster currently constructed and we can't tank. If we were 28-20 of course nobody would care because we would be firmly in the postseason but that isn't the case. We should be positioned 12th in the draft but instead we might miss the playoffs picking 30th.

Deron and Brook are injury prone. Joe is getting older and we have no alternative options which is all based off a stupid unecessary pick swap.

So yeah...that's the definition of hindsight.

Not entirely. Alot of posters were livid when the details of the pick swap were released during the season despite starting out with a winning record.

[jeff1624]

Please...you two are seriously going to argue that if we were picking 17th and the Hawks picking 20th, that there would be this massive outcry about the pick swap? Over 3 spots? In mid to early 20s of the draft? Come on now.

The reason, and the only reason...its such a big issue is that the Hawks are massively overachieving and we're massively underachieving.

It doesn't matter what position they land. With the Hawks having the right to swap picks with us this year the pick loses most of its value which is why it wasn't used in the celtics trade and instead King had to deal one 3 years from now. Even if the pick was a 2 spot difference it still rendered the asset useless for other teams because there was no way our pick would ever be a high lotto pick.

And when we reload in 2016 (hopefully with a better GM) and that pick 3 years from now ends up in the 20s, do we even care?

Again, almost everyone who looked at this trade when it was made paid little attention to the swap...mainly because universally, it was believed that the Hawks are the definition of a treadmill team and ours is at least a bit closer if not treadmill. It was essentially, viewed as a trade between a pick in 20-25 and another pick in the 18-25.

King overpaid for Joe, but the pick swap really wasn't a big deal...until now. To say anything otherwise is pure revisionist theory.

When the trade was announced the Nets didn't even disclose the fact that they included two pick swaps. I thought the deal was bad without even knowing about the pick swaps.

And yes the 2018 pick would matter even if it may end up in the 20's because it's one less asset for this team. I think we may just be the team with the least amount of assets for the next 4 years. Picks given away unnecessarily is huge.

[MrDollarBills]

Please...you two are seriously going to argue that if we were picking 17th and the Hawks picking 20th, that there would be this massive outcry about the pick swap? Over 3 spots? In mid to early 20s of the draft? Come on now.

The reason, and the only reason...its such a big issue is that the Hawks are massively overachieving and we're massively underachieving.

It doesn't matter what position they land. With the Hawks having the right to swap picks with us this year the pick loses most of its value which is why it wasn't used in the celtics trade and instead King had to deal one 3 years from now. Even if the pick was a 2 spot difference it still rendered the asset useless for other teams because there was no way our pick would ever be a high lotto pick.

And when we reload in 2016 (hopefully with a better GM) and that pick 3 years from now ends up in the 20s, do we even care?

Again, almost everyone who looked at this trade when it was made paid little attention to the swap...mainly because universally, it was believed that the Hawks are the definition of a treadmill team and ours is at least a bit closer if not treadmill. It was essentially, viewed as a trade between a pick in 20-25 and another pick in the 18-25.

King overpaid for Joe, but the pick swap really wasn't a big deal...until now. To say anything otherwise is pure revisionist theory.

Incorrect, you are being revisionist because the fanbase was appalled that the pick swaps were a)included in a deal which was bad in itself for a bloated contract and b)were hidden from the public.

That was well before this season.

[NyCeEvO]

King overpaid for Joe, but the pick swap really wasn't a big deal...until now. To say anything otherwise is pure revisionist theory.

Revisionist history? I think you forgot what happened.

The reason why no one knew about the pick swap when the trade first happened is because it was never reported when the trade was official.

I challenge you to find us a report that talks mentions the pick swaps when the trade actually occurred. You won't find it.

For example, ESPN (July 2, 2012):

The deal as it stands, as reported Sunday night by ESPN.com, calls for the Nets to send the expiring contracts of Jordan Farmar, Johan Petro, Anthony Morrow and Jordan Williams along with DeShawn Stevenson (via sign-and-trade) and a future first-round pick (lottery-protected in 2013 via Houston) to Atlanta in exchange for Johnson.

via http://espn.go.com/new-york/nba/story/_ ... ources-say

NBA.com (July 11, 2012):

The Brooklyn Nets have acquired six-time All-Star guard Joe Johnson from the Atlanta Hawks in exchange for Jordan Farmar, Anthony Morrow, DeShawn Stevenson, Jordan Williams, Johan Petro, Houston's 2013 first round pick and the Nets' second round draft pick in 2017, Nets General Manager Billy King announced today.

via http://www.nba.com/nets/news/Johnson_Tr ... 20711.html

ND's "Joe Johnson Trade Analysis 101" thread: http://www.netsdaily.com/2012/7/3/31342 ... alysis-101

Yahoo/Woj (July 2, 2012)

The Brooklyn Nets have reached an agreement in principle to acquire Atlanta Hawks guard Joe Johnson, league sources told Yahoo! Sports.

The trade sends guards Anthony Morrow, Jordan Farmar and DeShawn Stevenson and forwards Jordan Williams and Johan Petro to the Hawks, along with a lottery-protected 2013 first-round pick the Nets acquired from the Houston Rockets. Stevenson is a free agent, so he will go to the Hawks in a sign-and-trade deal.

via http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nba--nets- ... hawks.html

NJ.com (July 11, 2012)

The Nets have announced they have acquired six-time all-star shooting guard Joe Johnson from the Atlanta Hawks, in exchange for Jordan Farmar, Anthony Morrow, Johan Petro, DeShawn Stevenson, Jordan Williams, and two draft picks -- Houston's (lottery protected) first rounder in 2013, and the Nets' second rounder in 2017.

via http://www.nj.com/nets/index.ssf/2012/0 ... _trad.html

You should remember that it was JG and VC who were the ones reading the fine print on ShamSports who noticed the added details and made a huge deal about it.



Here is the post on January 6, 2013 that JG made where we first hear rumors about the 2014 & 2015 pick swaps:

viewtopic.php?p=34215036#p34215036

IF, and it's an if at this point, the swap pick deal is legit, then Vince, he way more than overpaid. It becomes to the point that Billy King completed two straight trades that can legitimately be called one of the worst ever and have a half-decent argument supporting the claim.

Read the subsequent pages and you will see JG, NIN, VC4P, and therealbig3 hammering home the how bad the pick swaps were.

In that particular thread I took a nuanced approach because at the time we were playing poorly and so my answer to the question of "Does King deserve to be fired?" was Yes and No. No, because the team was playing poorly and that wasn't his fault, however I also specifically state that deserved to be fired well before people made an uproar at that the time of thread.

Here are the most relevant parts of my post at the time (viewtopic.php?p=37570000#p37570000):

What I'm seeing is a fusion of "Whether King should be fired for all of his deals that he's done", "whether he's responsible for us being 3-9", and " whether should he be fired for putting us in bad spot with no draft picks for the long term".

I think there are clear and obvious differences for each topic.

Do I think King should be fired for all of his bad deals? Yes, he should've been fired a while ago.
I've ripped on King plenty of times before for his trades.

Are the deals he has done been overpays? Yes of course. In fact, I was one of the few people who called the trade for D-Will an overpay as soon as it happened.

Do I feel he should be fired for mortgaging the future this badly? Oh yeah, of course. It was and still is an extremely foolish thing to do.


But what I'm not responding to is whether King is most responsible for our poor start and for that I'd say no.
Yeah, he should've been fired for his deals in the past and what our future looks like, but if we're solely talking about whether he deserves to be fired for us sucking right now, I don't think so.

....I haven't seen people flaming King since draft day and I think it's because we've beat the past and future issues to death so that there's really no need to talk about those anymore. But what's stoking the fire is our present poor play which is reminding us of all the crap he did in the past and how it affects our future.

I definitely agree with you guys about the past and future stuff. The present is the only small area where I share a difference of opinion.

In short, no one knew about the pick swaps until 5 months after the trade went through.

Just read this ND article from January 6, 2013 entitled "Nets agreed to swap picks with Hawks in 2014 and 2015 as part of Johnson deal":

As part of the Joe Johnson trade, the Nets quietly agreed to permit the Hawks to swap first picks with Brooklyn in both 2014 and 2015, according to a league source. The Nets can still trade the picks, the source told NetsDaily.

The swap was listed on the RealGM draft asset page and confirmed by the source. The picks were part of the original deal but not announced since the picks were not traded, but swapped. There was no mention of the swap in the original press releases from the Nets and Hawks.

The final deal, as now fully disclosed, was Johnson for Jordan Farmar (bought out); Jordan Williams (bought out), DeShawn Stevenson (sign-and-trade), Anthony Morrow, Johan Petro, the Rockets picks (lottery protected) in 2013, the swap of first rounders in 2014 and 2015, and the Nets second rounder in 2017.

If the Nets finish lower than the Hawks in either year, they will have to swap picks.

via http://www.netsdaily.com/2013/1/6/38427 ... art-of-joe

So the thing is when it was finally confirmed in January 2013 that Billy King included pick swaps, several people voiced their displeasure.

What you should be doing is calling out the people who are still here who were dismissing the pick swaps as being of little value at the time, but now they're clamoring for King to be fired lol. Looks like he fooled them too.

[Jersey Generals]

Hindsight my ass. I called this the second I found out about the swaps from a friend that worked in the Nets FO. I stated my argument, tried to get people to see my point of view, all but guaranteed this exact concern, but got ran off and haven't been back since. Don't tell me that was hindsight.

Thanks, Evo, for crediting me and bringing me into this.



And for further proof, this is actually the first time ANYBODY has ever mentioned the pick swap. Look about halfway down.

http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=1214583&start=660

[SpeedyG]

You guys are getting this all twisted. I'm not arguing that King didn't overpay. He clearly did, as he has done many times in the past. Now, there's far too many posts to go through (especially since it was a general trade thread where it was brought up), but it seems to me that most of the complaints about the pick swap is in regards to the flexibility that we lost because of it. I'm not going to argue that.

But this notion of "we can't tank" and "lol we suck and we'll get the last pick in the draft coz King sucks"?

That's pure revisionist theory.

Because no one...NO...ONE...back when this deal happened or even in 2013 could have predicted that the Hawks would be where they are at this year coinciding with where we are this year.

I mean, a quick example was VC"s post, which he mentioned us getting the top pick because of injuries. You know what his example was? Us picking 1st and the Hawks picking...7th. I think, at worst, many of us were thinking that we'll end up with a pick just outside the lottery and the Hawks would get a pick just after the lottery. That's something most of us can stomach, I think. We'd hate it, but its not like picking with the last 3-5 picks of the draft vs. picking in the lotto.

But what happened with the Hawks this season has been an aberration of great proportions.

Now maybe you were upset then because you felt it limited our flexibility. Or maybe because you felt King overpaid even more than we already thought he did. I'm not going to argue those points, because I agree.

But I don't think we can sit here and blast King for a scenario (Hawks getting a very late 1st round pick vs us getting a low lotto pick) that, quite frankly, most, if not all of us could not have envisioned. Because, IMO, if the Hawks were picking 20th this year and we were picking 16th...I don't think the venom is as powerful as it is now.

[Jersey Generals]

Vince's exact words, since I can't quote a locked thread:

"To me there is one concern and one concern only, that being a huge one:

Injuries.

If one of those years we wind up smashed by the injury bug we could conceptually be swapping the 1st overall pick for whatever pick Atlanta has.

Even if Atlanta was like 7th overall bad. Or 4th.

Could you imagine having to swap Kyrie Irving for Bismack Biyombo? Or Anthony Davis for Thomas Robinson or Harrison Barnes? How about Derrick Rose for Eric Gordon? Lebron for Hinrich?!

Oh Billy, Billy, Billy... "

My response to that post:

"Why use fake examples? Why not just look to the other borough? Can you imagine having to swap Joakim Noah for Wilson Chandler?"

So again, no, for some of us, this is not hindsight. Was I concerned about them losing their value? Yes, but that was before even thinking about the implications of it actually being vested, which I touched upon in later threads. You can't say it's retrospective or revisionist history when Vince flat out says that. It doesn't matter if Atlanta was picking 7th and us 3rd or 20th and us 17th, the point was that it could still happen. I'm not going to go digging through my or Vince's post history to prove you wrong, that's not the point, but if you want to see people's exact thoughts on that matter, go look at that Joe Johnson thread a year or two ago, which is the day I stopped posting here.

[NyCeEvO]

Speedy, I don't see how you can say revisionist history when all of the things you said people didn't say were actually said at the time.

Could we have predicted this exact circumstance?

No, but those who were concerned all said the pick swaps needlessly created the potential for it to blow up in our faces which is exactly what happened.

Of course, if we picked 20th and the Hawks picked 16th there wouldn't be as much anger as there is now.

The problem is that many of us argued that the overpay and the needless pick swap always had the potential to blow up and he never needed to have the pick swap in the first place.

At that time, it was all potential. And yet even then we ragged on him all of the time.

Do you really expect us to be piping mad for years at a time?

Even if you look at the thread I mentioned before, we were already getting tired of beating a dead horse. You can't stay super angry for long. It gets too tiresome.

However, every time a bad effect of what King did in the past and we warned about in the past, it re-kindles the anger.

[NyCeEvO]

I'm not going to go digging through my or Vince's post history to prove you wrong, that's not the point, but if you want to see people's exact thoughts on that matter, go look at that Joe Johnson thread a year or two ago, which is the day I stopped posting here.

Come back JG...

[Lamak]

I'm surprised I'm just now really reading this thread. Definitely ready for this to happen.

[Dcebucks11]

why? i like billy king.

[Keith Van Horn]

why? i like billy king.

You must be a Celtics or Hawks fan.

[FireBillyKing]

Just a quick bump. Still looking for more support.

From the other recent threads it appears some fans that had still been giving King a free pass are starting to come around that he has really put this team in a bad place. So please sign the petition over at www.firebillyking.com and let others know.

Thanks.