| 23 February 2011
If you’re a regular reader of this site, you might remember me starting my post “Decision,” LeBron James article by saying, “If you’re looking for a coherent column on LeBron James…you’ve come to the wrong place.” Well here we are eight months later, and I’m in the same place, but for a completely different reason.
Deron Williams is now a New Jersey Net, you know that. But if you’re looking for me to rip the Jazz from head to toe for essentially waving the white flag on their season, and trading one of the 10 best basketball players on the planet, you won’t get that from me. If you’re hoping that I’m upset with Mikhail Prokhorov for rearranging the future of his franchise for potentially 18 months of Williams before he becomes a free agent, well that ain’t happening either.
The truth is, I love this trade. I love it for both sides, and I love it for all parties involved. I might not love it enough to dance like Elaine Benes, but I’m darn pretty close.
So why do I love this trade? Why do I love it in the here and now, and so much for both teams? Let’s take a look.
Let’s start with the Nets, and start with the nuts and bolts of this trade: They just traded for an All-Star point guard, a franchise player and someone who will instantaneously make every guy on the court better simply with his mere presence. And you know what? They gave up next to nothing to get him. Or at least no more than they would’ve had to give up to get Carmelo Anthony a week ago.
And speaking of Carmelo, I’ve got a newsflash for you: He was never coming to New Jersey. And I think Prokhorov and everyone around the Nets knew that.
Now I know that sounds laughable, if only because New Jersey had the parameters of a trade in place Friday, with yours truly even writing just a few hours prior “For Carmelo, its New Jersey or bust.” Meaning that if we’ve learned anything from this exercise, it’s that your buddy AT is a total idiot. Although most of you probably already knew that.
But just because I don’t ever think Carmelo ever seriously considered New Jersey, doesn’t mean that I don’t think he pretended to, to force the Knicks to make a move.
Remember, Carmelo has been saying since Day 1, Hour 1, Minute 1 of last summer, that he wanted to be a Knick, wanted his $65 million extension, and he wanted them both. The whole situation was more transparent than one of those Sports Illustrated spray-on bikinis.
Anyway, if you knew that, and I knew that, don’t you think the Knicks knew that? Don’t you think they knew that they could wait until free agency, scoop up Carmelo without the extension, and save the bounty of talent they were going to have to give away in a trade? Of course they did. Which means that the only way Carmelo was going to get his cake and eat it too (The Knicks + the $65 million) was to dupe James Dolan into believing there was another bidder in his sweepstakes.
Which is why at the last possible second (after having no interest in them for nine months), all of a sudden, Carmelo was happy to be a Net. Right, and I’d be willing to marry Roseanne Barr if the price was right. Get the f*** outta here. Carmelo was like the girl flirting with a guy at the bar just to get her own boyfriend’s attention. He was never going to be anything but a Knick. He just couldn’t let the Knicks know it. It led to his one final power play with the Nets over All-Star weekend.
(By the way, it’s for this same reason that I now believe Prokhorov was being honest when he said that the Nets last trade offer to Denver was simply to “Drive up the price,” on the Knicks.
Now, I’m sure a lot of you thought that Prokhorov was just trying to save face after whiffing on ‘Melo, but let’s think about this for a second.
Prokhorov is a self-made billionaire and business genius, and he was going head-to-head in negotiations with Dolan, a guy who inherited his money from daddy, has had problems with drugs and alcohol, and plays in a crappy cover band on the weekend. Who do you trust in this situation? Who do you think was going to blink first in a staring contest? If Dolan thought there was any chance that Carmelo would even consider New Jersey, you think there was any way he was letting him getting away? Of course not.
As for Prokhorov, well, he isn’t a sucker, and if he knew he wasn’t getting Carmelo, is it really that hard to believe that he’d purposely drive up the price on his biggest rival? Especially if it weakened them in the process? I’d say yes. And for the record, the Knicks are weakened. They might have two of the 10 best players in the league, but losing what they did in the Carmelo trade, they aren’t a better basketball team now than they were a week ago)
But anyway, let’s get back to Williams.
Now obviously I’m not saying that when the ‘Melo trade fell through for the Nets, that they knew Williams would fall into their lap. They didn’t. From all reports, this whole trade came together within the last 24 hours.
Still, New Jersey’s options were open, and they took full advantage, getting Williams without giving up much. And believe me, I watch the Nets quite a bit, and this trade really is very little skin off their backs.
Starting with Devin Harris, I’m sorry, but he’s no better than the 12th best point guard in the league, and honestly that’s probably being a little gracious to the guy. Harris is super-quick, but not super-skilled, and isn’t a particularly good passer or shooter. He doesn’t make anyone else around him better. Hell, he doesn’t even play hard half the time. And approaching his 28th birthday, that lightning quick first step is about to disappear faster than LeBron James' hairline. Truthfully, at this point I’m not sure Harris does much that his former backup Jordan Farmar can’t.
As for Derrick Favors, well, umm, he might be good at some point, but isn’t there right now. At 19 he’s big and strong, but also doesn’t know how to play defense, and more than anything, looks confused in an offensive set. Watching him, I feel like the poor kid needs a compass and map to figure out where to go on the court. sometimes.
And really, Favors is the best example of why it’s dumb to build your team around young players and draft picks if an opportunity like the Williams trade arises.
First off, based on the sheer numbers, history tells us that in most cases only 2-3 guys out of every draft class will actually turn into someone you can build a team around. And with everyone coming into the league so young, you never who those guys are going to be, or at what point in their careers they’re going to figure it out. It’s a total crapshoot. Honestly, the way the NBA Draft process works right now, it'd be like if a college admissions officer had to walk into an eighth grade classroom and had to hand out acceptance letters to his school on the spot. How would he or she know what those kids were going to be like in a few years? Well that’s what every NBA general manager goes through at draft time.
So while Favors might be great at some point, he might be awful too. Even if he does turn into an All-Star, what if it takes five years to happen? He’s only 19, so it’s feasible, and who knows if he’d even be in New Jersey by then. Is it worth the Nets skipping out on a chance to get Anthony or Williams because of it? I don’t think so.
Now I know that a lot of “experts,” are saying that if Williams doesn’t sign an extension in New Jersey this whole trade is moot. To which my response is………… REALLY!?!?!?!?!!?!?!
Were the Nets any closer to winning the title, or even making the playoffs with Harris and Favors instead of D-Will? Considering that they enter the second half of the season with a 17-40 mark, my answer is no.
On the reverse side, doesn’t Williams’ presence at least give you a fighting chance to talk a veteran or two into coming to town? And if you get one or two in, doesn’t that increase the likelihood of keeping Williams around down the road? Remember, you can’t build a house without a foundation. In the end, Williams might be not be that foundation, but he very well could be too. You could never, ever, EVER say that about Harris.
Also don’t forget that we have no idea what the heck the collective bargaining agreement is going to look like by the time Williams can opt-out of his contract after 2012. For all we know, the NBA might have some kind of franchise tag like the NFL does, and Williams could end up getting stuck in Jersey with Sammi and JWoww for all of eternity (Or at least until the end of his NBA career). Again, we just don’t know. Don’t you think that factored in the Nets decision to make this trade though?
But it’s for that same collective bargaining agreement that the Jazz had to make this move too.
Again, we have no idea what the CBA is going to look like, or what its limitations are going to be. We don’t know what the Jazz might’ve been able to get at the trade deadline next year, or if they’d be able to move him at all if there’s a lockout. Even without a lockout, with a new salary cap, who knows if they could’ve even gotten a package as good as the one they got Wednesday.
Which is why if the Jazz thought Williams would walk after 2012 (which it does seem like they did), they had to move him, and the sooner the better. Obviously I’m not the first, and won’t be the last person to point to the situations in Cleveland or Toronto as to what could have happened if they didn’t make the trade. At best, would anything have turned out better than the ‘Melo drama of the last seven months in Denver? I don’t know. But would it really be worth the risk?
Finally, let’s touch on one more note on this situation, because I think it’s an important one. To me, this trade speaks in a large degree to where we are at as a society right now. The world moves faster than ever before. We’re more mobile. No one is locked into one place. And I just don’t think we’ll see guys play their entire career with one team, for the same reason that you’ve had three different jobs in the last five years. It’s just how things are.
And I think it’s having a trickle-down effect on how we consume our sports.
The one thing that surprised me more than anything about this trade, was that as I browsed reports from the Salt Lake City Tribune, I couldn’t help but notice how relieved some fans were to see Williams out of town. Not a ton, but definitely more than I thought.
While it seemed strange at first, the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. That’s just how our society works now. Everything has a shelf-life and expiration date. I wrote about it with college football coaches a few months ago, and it’s happening here too. We’re at the point as a society, where we consume so much, so quickly, that we get burned out faster than ever before. Fans get sick of players. Players get sick of coaches. And coaches get sick of fans. It’s all cyclical. Our fuses are shorter. We need change faster.
And it happened in the case of Deron Williams. This is one of the five best point guards on the planet, and to a large degree, many fans were happy to see him traded.
Which is why from everything I’ve read, this trade had to happen. It had to happen for the franchises involved, for the primary player, and for the good of the fans.
All we know right now is that Deron Williams is a New Jersey Net.
But I have a feeling everything else will work itself out.
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