SALT LAKE CITY — The Nets begin their six-game Western swing Wednesday night against the Jazz, but it remains to be seen if they’ll return to Brooklyn next month with the same team they brought on the trip.
With less than 48 hours to go until Thursday’s 3 p.m. (EST) trade deadline, the Nets have been linked to several possible deals, with both Jason Terry and Reggie Evans rumored to be on the way out.
“People like to say it doesn’t wear on them, but … if your name is being thrown out there, it’s hard not to think about it,” Deron Williams said before the Nets convened at the University of Utah for practice Tuesday night.
“Especially if you have a family, you have to uproot your family … it’s a lot to think about. It’s definitely tough, and once the deadline passes, it’ll be good for us.”
The strongest rumor at this point appears to involve the Kings’ Marcus Thornton, a trigger-happy shooting guard, coming to Brooklyn in exchange for Terry and Evans, a potential deal that was first reported by Yahoo! Sports. While it would cost the Nets a little over $700,000 in salary plus a couple of million more in luxury-tax payments, it also would free up a roster spot, both for the remainder of this season and next, when Thornton is set to be owed $8.5 million.
Both Terry, who is in his 15th season, and Evans, who is in his 12th, have been traded multiple times in their careers. Terry was shipped to the Nets last summer as part of the blockbuster trade with the Celtics that brought Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett.
Terry, 36, is having his least productive season, averaging 4.5 points in 16.3 minutes per game after spending much of the first two months of the season working his way back from offseason knee surgery.
“It’s the time of year,” Terry said. “We’re two days away from the deadline, and you figure somebody’s name is going to be in it. Whether it’s real or not, I don’t have that for you. You’d have to ask [Nets general manager] Billy [King].
“But obviously if it is real, I felt like this was an opportunity to win a championship with this team. If it’s real, that’s obviously not going to happen, and that’s kind of disappointing.”
Terry added he was planning on reaching out to King sometime before the deadline.
“You’re not sure if it’s going to happen either way, but for me, if it is I would rather know than kind of being in limbo for two or three days,” he said. “Especially at this point in my career, so you can better prepare yourself for it and just move on. It is what it is.”
Evans also has seen his production drop. After starting the majority of games at power forward a year ago and averaging more than 11 boards per game, the burly rebounding machine has often found himself as the fifth man in a four-man big rotation, behind Kevin Garnett, Andray Blatche, Mirza Teletovic and rookie Mason Plumlee.
But when he was asked if he’d like a change of scenery and a chance to play more minutes, Evans didn’t bite.
“I’m looking forward to going to California this weekend, to San Francisco and [Los Angeles] for some good weather,” Evans said, citing the next two destinations on the trip. “I just had some good weather in Florida, so I’m definitely looking forward to that change after the game [tonight].”