LAS VEGAS — When Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov purchased the majority stake in the Nets four years ago, he declared they would win a championship within his first five years in charge. If they failed, he joked he would “punish himself” and get married.
After the team’s decision to pass on matching the two-year, $11 million deal Paul Pierce agreed to with the Wizards late Saturday night, the Nets have officially slammed that five-year championship window shut.
Hopefully Prokhorov has scouted out a suitable wedding planner.
Following four years of moves aimed at nothing but chasing a championship, the decision to pass on Pierce was clearly a business one, marking a clear change in direction for the franchise.
“We’re not going to go crazy,” general manager Billy King said recently when asked what the Nets may offer Pierce. “But we understand the value that he has for us and the impact and we’d like him back.”
That value and impact apparently weren’t worth spending over $20 million in combined payroll and luxury-tax commitments. And, from a business standpoint, there is a very sensible, logical argument for why the Nets did what they did. Spending that much to sign a 37-year-old forward when you aren’t expected to make a title challenge is not sound business practice.
Factor in that without Pierce’s salary on the books, the Nets will have at least a puncher’s chance of being under the punitive repeater tax in 2015-16 and the reasoning behind the decision becomes even clearer.
But the problem with looking at moving on from Pierce strictly through this prism is that it ignores the rationale behind most of the decisions the Nets have made over the past two years.
While no one questioned the wisdom of signing Deron Williams and Brook Lopez to max contracts in July 2012, taking on the final four years and more than $89 million of Joe Johnson’s contract that summer could be rationalized by the fact the Nets only gave up a bunch of expiring contracts and one first-round pick to acquire a talented player who has been their most reliable and consistent performer the past two seasons.
Similarly, the massive blockbuster for Pierce and Kevin Garnett last summer was a deal the Nets thought made them into an instant championship contender, and the massive expenditure it produced was simply the cost of doing business for a billionaire pushing for the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
A year later, however, in addition to spending over $190 million — easily an NBA record — in payroll and luxury-tax commitments for one playoff series win, sending three first-round picks and the right to swap a fourth to the Celtics for one year of Pierce and what likely will be two of Garnett appears dubious, at best.
Regardless, the decision to move on from Pierce — and without the Nets receiving anything in return via a sign-and-trade, as it was thought they might — represents a paradigm shift for the Nets. Until now, money has never been an issue, with Prokhorov’s vast fortune ready and able to back up any move the Nets were willing to make.
That’s not something you can say anymore. The Post reported last month that after minority owner Bruce Ratner’s Forest City Enterprises announced it would sell its 20 percent stake in the franchise, Prokhorov — who owns the remaining 80 percent — indicated the Nets would be under the luxury-tax threshold by the 2015-16 season.
By not matching Pierce’s contract, the Nets are currently projected to have about $76 million in salary committed to eight players that season, giving them a chance to do exactly that, not only saving money but giving them future flexibility they currently don’t have. But in the short-term, it means the team will take a hit on the court, as there’s no arguing losing Pierce for nothing will make the Nets a better team next season.
In fact, in an Eastern Conference that has gotten much deeper and more competitive, you can make a real case 11 teams are good enough to vie for the eight playoff spots, and between the injury questions with Williams and Lopez, the Nets have as much uncertainty surrounding them as any of those teams.
Making a sound business decision instead of one focused solely on basketball isn’t a bad move — but it is one the Nets haven’t made previously under Prokhorov. After the Nets played by a different set of rules over the last two seasons, moving on from Pierce for financial reasons means the Nets are — at least for now — no different than any other NBA team.
Reality has arrived in Brooklyn. The money matters now.