No. Sleep. ‘Till Brooklyn. For Deron Williams.
The most coveted free agent of this summer tweeted out late Tuesday that he had made a very tough decision — with a picture of the Brooklyn Nets new logo attached to the tweet.
The two sides agreed to a five-year, $98 million deal (he cannot actually sign it until July 11). He will make $17.2 million next season and get $1.3 million annual raises through the five years. Williams said he wanted to make a quick decision before USA Basketball opens its Olympic training camp in Vegas Friday and he did just that.
This is a huge win for the Nets. Huge. The gamble they made more than a year ago to trade for him, pulling him out of Utah with no guarantees (sending Derrick Favors and more west) has paid off. The Nets needed a true star to lead them into the brand new Barclay Center in the nation’s largest market, they needed to be able to compete with the established Knicks. At least on the court, they can hold their own now. With Williams, Joe Johnson (who they just traded for) and Gerald Wallace they will have a respectable team.
If they add Dwight Howard they would move from respectable to contender. But we’re not there yet.
Even if the Nets simply retain Brook Lopez and MarShon Brooks and do not make any other big moves they will be a high scoring, entertaining team. A playoff team. The kind of squad that people will pay to see.
D-Will chose Brooklyn over his home town of Dallas and the Mavericks, which now will resort to Plan B — most likely a hard run at Dwight Howard, but that involves making a difficult trade with the Magic. If not Howard then they likely go after Steve Nash to reunite him with Dirk Nowitzki. Which is a big let down, Mark Cuban scaled his payroll back to adapt to the new financial rules of the NBA, make a run at William and contend again quickly. It may take longer than anticipated.
Mavericks officials had thought Williams was leaning toward Brooklyn but were trying to hold out hope. However, Williams has said he enjoys living in the New York area and already picked up some key endorsements, such as a Red Bull deal.
He may get more now. He is the face of Brooklyn’s new professional sports franchise. In a hoop-crazy city.