Trading D-Will to the Kings doesn’t make sense
What are the Nets thinking as an organization? Nowadays, no one knows. Going into Brooklyn, the plan was to put together a team that could compete right off the bat and make the playoffs for the first time since 2006–07 season.
The goal was accomplished when the Nets won 49 games in their inaugural season in Brooklyn before losing a thrilling 7 game first-round series against a Bulls team that had a more experienced coach and possessed better team chemistry. Last season, the goal was to go further into the playoffs and maybe even compete for a title, so GM Billy King went out and mortgaged the future by trading away 3 future first round picks for talented, but older players in Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Jason Terry. We, as fans, were okay with that at the time,thinking that we would have some time to put this together and actually make a deep run in the playoffs, something that we haven’t seen in over a decade. That plan got off to a horrid start, as the Nets started 10-21 and lost Brook Lopez to a season-ending injury, obstacles that seemed to be impossible to get over. Well that wasn’t the case, as the Nets scraped together a new style of play and went on to win 34 of the next 50 games en route to a playoff berth against the Atlantic Division champion Toronto Raptors. The Nets went on to handle business in 7 games, but lost in the second round to the LeBron James led Miami Heat in 5 games. While the Nets fell short of the goal of going deep into the playoffs, under the circumstances of losing Lopez and getting off to a terrible start, the Nets still found a way to go deeper into the playoffs than the year prior and seemed to be building some momentum coming into the current 2014-2015 season.
Nothing of the sort has happened.The front office decided to pull the plug after one season and went in favor of a “cheaper but still competitive” approach. Pierce wasn’t resigned, and the Nets chose to go with euro-star Bojan Bogdanovic. That’s a lot of veteran leadership and on court clutch play that we lost in place of a rookie who has never played NBA basketball before. While this came as a huge surprise, we as Nets fans thought that a heathy Lopez and an emerging Mirza Teletovic could pick up the slack lost by the departing Pierce.That has shown to not be the case as Lopez is struggling in his return after injury and Mirza, while playing well in spurts, has a tendency to not make an impact on occasion, something the Nets cannot afford to happen if they want to win games. On top of that, Head coach Jason Kidd is gone and in his place is the tougher, old school coach Lionel Hollins. Shaun Livingston, who deserved the bigger contract that the Warriors gave him, is another solid contributor who was lost, as well as Andray Blatche.
Even after all these changes, Nets fans thought a healthy core of D-Will, Joe Johnson, and Brook Lopez, as well as talented players in Mirza, Mason Plumlee, Jarret Jack and the veteran Kevin Garnett would be plenty enough to compete and maybe even prosper in the weak Eastern Conference. Now, after 25 games, management wants to once again change things up and pull the plug even further by trading D-Will to the Sacramento Kings for Darren Collison, Derrick Williams, and Jason Thompson? How does this improve the Nets now or even in the future? We get back zero draft picks and no players that you can really count on being a future Net contributor (although Collison is a solid player). Deron Williams seems like the only player on the team that can run our offense, while being the face of the franchise every year in Brooklyn. Shipping D-Will out of town for the Kings package would make the Nets once again look like an inconsistent organization with little to zero patience, something that has been plaguing us ever since moving to Brooklyn with constant coaching changes and trade rumors. While every Nets fan is in favor of improving the team, this trade simply does not accomplish that goal. What would the Nets be trying to do? We cannot have a true rebuild because the Celtics have most of our future 1st round draft picks, and by trading away D-Will and the other big names on our team, what free agents are going to want to come play for a Nets team with no draft picks and little to no talent? How about the Nets actually stick to what they have for once and try to fix the problems from within, rather then constantly trying to bring in new pieces whether thats coaches or players. The core of this team won 49 games two years ago and has plenty of talent to right this ship before seasons end, now is not the time to pull the plug.