Spoiler alert: we don’t know but here’s some fun facts to help you through the next four days.
This report could be quite perishable, even by the time it’s finished it could be outdated.
Shams Charania or Marc Stein and his legion could tweet out word of a Brooklyn Nets trade sending this player here or that player there or maybe be a third or fourth team in the next four days. After two blockbusters — Saturday’s Luka Doncic-for-Anthony Davis deal and the three team deal that send D’Aaron Fox to San Antonio and Zach Lavine to Sacramento — we’d all like time to sleep but it seems like from now till Thursday at 3:00 p.m. ET, there will be no sleep till Brooklyn (makes it move.)
As of 9:00 p.m. ET Sunday, the Nets have not made any moves. Nor have they been in many rumors, at least any with details and credibility, the latter being critically important. Social media and podcasting is currently filled with young writers thinking they might become the next Woj (of sainted memory) or Shams, guys who would up with multi-million dollar salaries and millions of followers too. So be ware.
The lack of any Nets involvement has confused some, particularly a number of fans in Dallas who know now that their GM, Nico Harrison, didn’t set up an NBA-wide bidding auction for Luka Doncic. That could have led Brooklyn to at least survey the field. Of course, Dallas GM Nico Harrison didn’t consult his head coach before the deal got done either! (For those who amuse themselves with nuggets from Nets history, Jason Kidd was consulted before Billy King’s Boston Celtics trade.)
Brooklyn certainly has assets. They currently — and it is a changing landscape — have 15 first round picks, 12 of which can be traded before Thursday, as well as 16 second rounders all of which can be traded through 2031. Those picks were seen as Sean Marks & co. gold reserve, a lot of value yes, but maybe best held until there’s a real need and there’s no real need now, that’s for sure.
Another reason they can be expected to hold on to those picks till later in the rebuild is that Marks appears to be in accumulation mode still. Since last trade deadline, the Nets have added seven first rounders: five in the Mikal Bridges deal and two more if you count the two picks they got back from the Rockets. They also control a first round swap with New York, Same with second rounders. Marks has picked up three each in the trades that dispatched Royce O’Neale, Dennis Schroder and Dorian Finney-Smith to the far reaches of the NBA; one in the Bridges deal and one in the deal that brought Ziaire Williams to the Nets.
Yes, they had to give up a few draft assets in the Rockets trade, a 2027 first and some conditional arrangements in 2025 and 2029 as well. They also sent a protected Heat second to Golden State along with Schroder and sent a previously acquired 2026 second to the Knicks in the Bridges deal. But in each of those cases, the moves were either required to cement something larger or make ends meet under the new CBA.
In other words, chances are higher that the Nets will add picks.
Beyond that, the two or three players who are most rumored to be on the block — Cam Johnson, Day’Ron Sharpe and to a lesser degree, Nic Claxton — are not among the biggest names in the rumor mill. Big names go first. That’s followed by a cascade of deals. We may have to wait for Jimmy Butler to exit Miami before everyone moves down their target list and finds “Johnson, Cameron.”
“The Nets are in no hurry,” a league insider told NetsDaily the other day when there was word that the team might buy out Ben Simmons. And why should they be? They don’t need picks. They don’t need expiring contracts with more than $60 to $70 million in cap space next year. They don’t need a “final piece.” What they need is flexibility to go in any direction should events merit. So, they are still looking for more future, less present.. Bottom line, said another source: “They’re taking calls, not making them.”
As for Cam Johnson, Brooklyn has set an asking price of two first-round picks and “stuff” as Jake Fischer put it the other day. That’s a steep price and a number of teams who might very well have been interested in the Nets sharpshooter have already moved on. The Kings now have LaVine and the Lakers have Doncic. Besides, Johnson could garner a better deal in the off-season … or just settle down.
As the dust settles, it will be wise to see where contending teams see voids going forward. The Lakers could definitely use a big man with Anthony Davis departing. Brett Siegel of Clutch Points wrote last week that the Laker brass does like Day-Day but at that point, Siegel wrote, Davis wanted them to bring in someone more like Jonas Valančiūnas or Nikola Vucevic, a veteran presence to relieve pressure on him. Well, Davis opinion doesn’t matter any more, does it?
Of course, like any team in the CBA era, there are restraints on the Nets. At this point, they are only $677,000 away from the luxury tax threshold … and they are not going over it and risk being in the repeater tax for the entirety of their rebuild.
Finally, there’s the lottery. The Nets own pick is currently fifth after another Raptor win, four games behind (ahead?) of second, now occupied by the Jazz. Indeed, the Nets have actually gotten closer to the top in the last week, even though they’ve won (lost?) ground, going from sixth to fifth. The reason: teams ahead of them are winning too.
Indeed, the Nets winning ways — now at two — may continue, dropping their lottery odds. This week, they play the Rockets, Hornets, Heat and Hornets, all at home. Moreover, they don’t leave the New York area again till February 22 after a homestand and All-Star Weekend. And their first two games after that are in Philadelphia and Washington. In fact, of the remaining 34 games, 19 are at home and they play fewer games than a lot of the lottery teams. At the same time, players from Cam Johnson and Cam Thomas as well as other ranging from Bojan Bogdanovic to Maxwell Lewis could all return to good health.
That might make the prospect of a Ben Simmons buyout more likely, a move to add losses, so to speak. If he isn’t moved at the deadline — and a league source intimated to ND that despite the difficulty of moving a $40.3 million contract, Marks & co. are trying — there’s no reason to keep him. They’d presumably save a few million dollars in a buyout and move further away from the tax threshold. It would be advantageous to Simmons too. He would get a chance to hook up with a contender and try to prove himself again. Note that neither of our sources in Friday’s said the Nets and Simmons won’t engage in buyout talks, just that nothing’s happening now.
So, Trade Deadline Week is off with a bang or two with more to come. Will Nets join the party? Considering how active they were at last year’s deadline, at the draft, and in the first days and weeks of the start of unofficial trade season, it would seem they will be. That said, there is no time of the year when the front office staff at HSS Training Center is more buttoned up than now. We will just have to wait like everyone else.