The Brooklyn Nets making their massive front office and coaching changes don’t really make a difference and at this point of the season, also make little sense. Lionel Hollins could have been fired before the season started or at the end of it. The Nets don’t have players they can use for trades that improve them right away. It’s all about waiting.
Waiting for actually having draft picks. The only two players worth something in terms of picks for the Nets are Brookl Lopez, with a deal that runs through the 2017-2018 season and pays him $21 million a year on average and maybe Thad Young, making $50 million over the four years he’s signed, beginning with this season, including a $13.8 million player option. Anyone else teams might try to trade their draft picks for? Maybe Bojan Bogdanovic, maybe.
But the Nets owner, Mikhail Prokhorov, isn’t a patient man. He doesn’t see some rebuilding effort in the future. Not a one year, not two years, and certainly not whatever it is the Philadelphia 76ers are trying to do. But saying he wants to succeed now and actually doing it with what the Nets have doesn’t exist in reality. This team needs an almost brand new roster from top to bottom. The new salary cap offers a chance for teams with cap space to do a lot of work with free agents, but the Nets are probably more than just one good offseason away from contending for the NBA title, as Prokhorov doesn’t seem content about simply making the playoffs, which the Nets have done regularly over the last few years, never really getting far.
The Nets swung for the home run and missed. The trade for Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce decimated their draft pool, and that one season effort to make something happen ended in the conference semifinals. From that point, it was all about waiting out bad contracts to end. Deron Williams is gone, Joe Johnson will be leaving at the end of this season and reportedly not seek a buyout. Right now the Nets have $56 million on the books for next season, which means there’s plenty of space for big free agency signings, although it’s not quite certain if anyone wants to play there.
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