Last all season in the standings, the Nets at least led the NBA in hope because they had the most salary-cap space available for the summer’s free agent bonanza.
That standing was obliterated when the Knicks took their roster and shook it vigorously on Thursday.
So now the Nets, still in a healthy financial place with what should be roughly $24 million to spend, know the Knicks will have about $9 million more, enough for two max-out types.
The Nets may still have the better roster foundation — especially with 10 draft picks over the next three years — but the Knicks will have the money, the allure of New York and the Garden. The Nets, who have six players with fully guaranteed deals (Yi, Lopez, Lee, Harris, Humphries, Williams) can brag they have Newark for two years before the expected move to Brooklyn.
“Obviously, we’re in a great position for next year as far as free agency and draft picks,” said Devin Harris, referring to the overall future and the fact the 5-49 Nets stood pat at Thursday’s trading deadline. “I don’t think they want to take a chance on bringing in somebody that might (detour) from the plan that they’re expected to go on.”
The suffering the Nets have endured is a result of positioning themselves to be major players this summer. They were an NBA Finals team early in the decade. Late in the decade, they are a national joke. But they believe it will all come together and the suffering and pain will be worth it.
“We’ve done a lot in a year-and-a-half,” said interim coach Kiki Vandeweghe, who is holding the sideline seat for whomever incoming Russian billionaire owner Mikhail Prokhorov eventually deems worthy. “We still have a lot of cap space, we have young players that play and right now the focus is that we’ve still got to develop those guys, get better internally and try to win some games.”
So everything is about the future despite the present being a hideous mess. But even some players admitted it made no sense to try any trade deadline moves to salvage something from this burning, listing shipwreck.
“Right now we’re so far gone, we could get the best player in the world and that wouldn’t get us in the playoff run,” said Keyon Dooling, who is only partially guaranteed for 2010-11. “So it wouldn’t matter who we got. It wouldn’t change the result. We might win a few more games but overall, it wouldn’t be beneficial to the future.”