Joe Johnson (EPA)
After spending the past 16 months recruiting Deron Williams, the Nets met with their free-agent superstar point guard yesterday to give him one last sales pitch.
Part of that sales pitch was acquiring six-time All-Star shooting guard Joe Johnson from the Hawks. The trade, which won’t be official until July 11, when the moratorium on signing free agents has been lifted, includes the Nets sending several players with expiring contracts — guards Anthony Morrow and Jordan Farmar, forward Jordan Williams and center Johan Petro — to Atlanta, along with a sign-and-trade of guard DeShawn Stevenson and Houston’s lottery-protected first-round pick in next year’s draft.
Landing Johnson to play alongside Williams would give the Nets arguably the best starting backcourt in the NBA. Along with small forward Gerald Wallace, who re-signed in the opening hours of free agency Sunday afternoon, the Nets have a pair of savvy veterans to play alongside Williams if he re-signs — something he repeatedly said they needed to compile to become competitive.
“We have to get some veterans,” Williams said at his season-ending press conference in April. “Guys that know how to play the game of basketball, make the right plays, extra passes. That was the most frustrating part of this year.”
With Johnson in the fold, the Nets could show Williams a blueprint for a team he could pilot to be very competitive in the Eastern Conference this fall, when the team begins play in Brooklyn in the brand new Barclays Center. Besides Williams, Johnson and Wallace, the Nets also will match any offer for restricted free-agent center Brook Lopez and also are planning on using their mid-level exception to land Bosnian power forward Mirza Teletovic, who has range out to the 3-point line.
In addition, the Nets held on to MarShon Brooks, who is coming off a successful rookie season, and Gerald Green, whom they hope to re-sign in free agency. They also have the $1.9 million bi-annual exception to spend on free agents and can use a pair of small trade exceptions as well.
The Nets’ meeting with Williams yesterday came after the point guard sat down with the Mavericks earlier in the afternoon. Dallas always has been seen as the one team that could possibly pry Williams away from Brooklyn, thanks to the combination of offering him a chance to play alongside star power forward Dirk Nowitzki and to return to his hometown.
But the Nets are the only team that can offer Williams a five-year max contract, which would guarantee Williams roughly $100 million, and he would be the unquestioned face of the franchise as it makes the move to Brooklyn. The Mavericks, or any other team, could only offer him four years for about $75 million.
Money was a major reason why Atlanta was shopping Johnson, despite his talent. The 6-foot-7 swingman is owed roughly $90 million dollars over the remaining four years of his contract — a deal the Hawks agreed to just two summers ago in order to keep him from signing with the Knicks, where he would have been reunited with Mike D’Antoni and Amar’e Stoudemire, his coach and teammate in Phoenix before leaving for the Hawks several seasons earlier.
The move also means the Nets are likely out of any further discussions for Magic center Dwight Howard, whom they have chased since the lockout ended last year in the hopes of pairing him with Williams. Howard repeatedly has made it clear he would like to be traded to the Nets, but their window to land Howard all but closed back in March, when he inexplicably opted into the final year of his contract in the hours leading up to the March 15 trade deadline, keeping him out of free agency this summer.
—Additional reporting by Fred Kerber