Brooklyn Nets GM Billy King wants to be a player at the trade deadline.
Maybe it’s because he realizes his very expensive Nets roster is on the third tier in the East. Maybe it’s because King’s contract is up at the end of this season. Maybe when you combine those two facts with an impatient owner King should be worried.
The Nets were rumored to be going after Ben Gordon first and Josh Smith most recently, but they have moved on to a new target, reports the New York Daily News.According to league sources familiar with the Nets thinking, they’re still searching to add a big man, but don’t believe that they are going to wind up with Smith or Gordon, despite having recent trade talks with Atlanta and Charlotte….
Still, the Nets are focusing on Utah’s Paul Millsap or another power forward to add by the trading deadline. The Nets and Jazz have been trading partners in the past, highlighted by the Nets’ bold move to get Williams at the 2011 mid-season deadline. But King also insists he hasn’t given up on this group.
The reason the Nets are having trouble finding a dance partner is who they are dangling as trade bait — a slumping Kris Humphries, a guy who will make $12 million next season and MarShon Brooks, a young player with some promise but playing 11 minutes a game for the nets and with a below-average PER of 13.9. Nobody is going to give up anything of quality for those guys.
Not the Jazz. They will move Jefferson or Millsap before the deadline but not for Humphries. The Nets will have to do better.
But look for King and the Nets to make some kind of play as the deadline approaches.
