MILWAUKEE — When Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov returns to watch his team play in Brooklyn tomorrow, will he see any new players on his team?
That’s the question that remains as the NBA approaches today’s trade deadline, and one that had the Nets smack in the middle of the annual rumor mill as they prepared to face the Bucks last night.
“I don’t know,” Nets interim coach P.J. Carlesimo said before the game when asked if he thought his team would look the same after today’s deadline.
Because of Prokhorov’s willingness to spend, and because of their hole at power forward, the Nets have been linked to the top player available, Atlanta’s Josh Smith — who also happens to play power forward. But while Yahoo! Sports reported the Nets, along with the Bucks and Suns, are the three likeliest destinations for Smith, it still seems unlikely the Nets would be able to pull off such a deal.
The biggest impediment in any deal for a player such as Smith or Boston’s Paul Pierce is the fact the Nets are including power forward Kris Humphries in any such deal because of his $12 million salary. Though that would make the salaries match in a trade for a big name such as Smith or Pierce, teams are reluctant to have to take on the $12 million Humphries is owed next season, as well.
A league source said there was “not much” to reports of the Nets making a run at Pierce, who has spent his entire career with the Celtics and who has a partially guaranteed salary for next year of just $4 million.
In a sitdown with reporters at the team’s practice facility Tuesday, Nets general manager Billy King said there was a “10 percent” chance he would be making a deal by today’s deadline.
If anything does happen by the deadline, it likely will be to fill the team’s hole at power forward, where Reggie Evans — an offensively limited rebounding machine who is better suited to being a sparkplug off the bench — has been starting with Humphries backing him up. The pair of them are combining to score fewer than 10 points per game, and allowing opposing defenses to often leave them alone and focus their attention on Deron Williams, Joe Johnson and Brook Lopez instead.
But it remains unlikely that a package of Humphries, second-year guard MarShon Brooks and a first-round pick would be enough to land a player of the caliber of Smith or Pierce because of the extra year on Humphries’ contract, especially in the current economic climate in the NBA where teams are concerned about the much more restrictive financial rules in the new collective bargaining agreement.
The Nets already are well over the luxury tax, which makes adding any additional assets to a trade — even for a player like Smith or Pierce — a difficult choice, as beginning this summer teams over the tax are only able to sign one free agent using the “mini” mid-level exception, making draft picks much more valuable.
The Nets hold all of the first-round picks going forward, but don’t have a second-rounder for several years. The Nets also have $3 million that they can include in trades, but would prefer to save that money so they can use it to make draft-day trades.