A fire sale could be under way tomorrow for The Brooklyn Nets and that might be the best thing for the franchise as they’ve failed to build a championship contender. The Nets have by far been one of the biggest disappointments from acquiring Deron Williams to acquiring Joe Johnson and even last season trading for Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett each plan the team has put in place to put veteran players in place for a quick rebuild has failed miserably. The Nets have been in the post season two seasons in a row, but they failed to gain any traction towards a championship. Wednesday Joe Johnson himself confirmed that the team has made him available for trade According to Tim Bontemps of The New York Post.
Joe Johnson said rumors are true about his name being out there, and admitted that “it’s been kind of different” this year because of it.
— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) February 19, 2015
Johnson admitting this season has been different is no surprise The Nets sit at 21-29 one game out of the eighth seed in The Eastern Conference, but the team has rumors of Johnson being available among other players on the roster as well outside of Mason Plumlee (the only bright spot for this Nets team at the moment). The Detroit Pistons have been linked to Johnson, but if the deal could’ve happened it would’ve been back in January when The Pistons offered a deal constructed around Point Guard Brandon Jennings and expiring contracts for Brooklyn. Joe Johnson is still under contract until the end of the 2016 season for about $47 million if you count this seasons salary which is big money I can see being the only thing making any deal difficult to complete.
The Nets have quite a few choices to make here at the deadline and it seems like they have the approach of cutting their losses and going with a full rebuild could be the way to go which is much needed. If Brooklyn can rid themselves of Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, and Brook Lopez’s contracts tomorrow while gaining cap relief and draft picks the trade deadline winner could go to Brooklyn. With Williams, Johnson, and Lopez they can help a contending team as of right now, but if Brooklyn doesn’t cut their losses now they will just have to do it in the off season anyways when the players mentioned value could drop or they’ll just delay the inevitable which I can see them trading one of the three players listed in tomorrows trade deadline.
