When Nets general manager Billy King alerted owner Mikhail Prokhorov the team could potentially get both Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett in a trade with the Celtics, Prokhorov’s response was swift.
“Hell yes,” Prokhorov said with a smile in an interview with the YES Network that aired at halftime of the Nets’ 101-100 victory over the Heat in Brooklyn on Friday night.
In acquiring the two future Hall of Famers — along with Jason Terry — from Boston, the Nets ensured they would be in line to pay a heavy luxury tax this season. Their current salary commitments, including both payroll and luxury tax payments, are set to be about $189 million, far more than any other NBA team, after the moves they made this summer.
But Prokhorov said paying such a heavy price for a shot at a championship team was an easy decision.
“I don’t go halfway on anything,” he said. “I always go all the way.”
Prokhorov also said he had no problem with the NBA’s investigation into the signing of fellow Russian Andrei Kirilenko this summer. After the Nets landed Kirilenko on a one-year deal for the mini mid-level exception of $3.2 million that included a player option for a second season, teams around the league cried foul. But the league looked into the deal and found no wrongdoing on the Nets’ part.
“[I don’t mind] at all,” Prokhorov said. “It meant we can put the issue to bed. We play by the rules, and the NBA confirmed this, so we can sleep [soundly] at night.”
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Kirilenko, the 6-foot-10 combo forward, made his debut as a Net Friday night after missing the season opener, as well as the final two weeks of the preseason, with back spasms.
“It felt great,” said Kirilenko, who finished with eight points, two rebounds and an assist in 11:46. “I knew I was going to have limited time, and tried to be productive those times I was in there. It feels good.”
Kirilenko, expected to have a major role coming off the bench for the Nets, hooked up multiple times with his old point guard from Utah, Deron Williams, first hitting Williams with a nice pass for a layup during their first minutes on the court together in the opening quarter, before Williams returned the favor later in the game by setting up Kirilenko for a baseline drive and dunk.
“It felt like our Utah days again,” Kirilenko said with a smile.
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Williams saw his minutes increase to 27 Friday night after playing 22 in Wednesday’s loss in Cleveland, keeping him on schedule to be free of any kind of minutes limit for Sunday’s game in Orlando, as King said would be the case in a radio interview Thursday.
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Nets coach Jason Kidd will make his return to the bench Sunday, after assistant coach Joe Prunty served as acting head coach each of the first two games with Kidd serving a two-game suspension for pleading guilty to driving while ability impaired.