The trade deadline is over and the Nets are as they were before it. Houston’s upgrade of players could improve the competition for a play off spot making it harder for the Mavs to qualify for the post season and thus improving the Nets pick from the Mavs.

The Knicks are betting everything on attracting the top tier free agents and anything less will be a failure. The decision to give up essentially four first round picks in a row is astounding (Jordan Hill now traded to Houston, Utah picks in 2010, Houston can choose to swap picks in 2011 and Houston picks in 2012). And they still couldn’t get rid of Eddy Curry who could now be bought out to increase cap space for next season if they want to eat his contract in one go!

For the Nets the next few months focus on two factors improving their record to get to at least 10 wins and the draft lottery ping pong balls bouncing their way. I would like to think with the NBA opening an office in Russia that some sort of agreement can be made with Mikhail about the Nets getting the 1st pick overall. But we all know things don’t work that way, ask the Knicks about how they secured Patrick Ewing in the draft, ha!

The Nets will have vast cap space and likely a new owner and a new short term arena but I think with Mikhail running the show from the summer that he will be looking long term for the fortunes of his franchise. I believe in the near term Rod Thorn should be allowed to set out a vision in tandem with an upcoming new General Manager who can set out Mikhail’s long term strategy.

Clearly if the Nets can pick up Wall or Turner the nucleus of a talented young team improves significantly. And the team plays in the biggest market – another important factor for upcoming free agents.

@Net Income – I agree the franchise is now more likely to be renamed the New York Nets. And thanks for all the sterling work on the site over the last few weeks heading up to the trade deadline.

The Nets are sitting pretty and really don’t have to look at spending in the F/A market.
Besides, they are going to need the money when B.Lopez contract comes up for his second go around.
They can paly it smart through the draft.

According to NetsAreScorching.com, only 500,000 of Keyon Dooling’s contract is guaranteed for next year. Shouldn’t that give the Nets another 3.3 mil in cap space to play around with should they decide to not pick up the option?

There’s about 8 Star to borderline allstar level free agents. You have to figure on Miami definitely keeping Wade & adding one of the PFs. You’d also have to think that NY & Chicago will land 3 of those 8. That leaves us, 5 other under the cap teams, and the players’ original teams competing for the final 3 borderline allstars. I don’t think it’s looking pretty at all.

If the Nets land Wall, they could and should trade Harris during draft night. That would free up another $8 million approx. to go after free agents. That would result in $34 million in cap space. The Nets would have Lopez and Wall and the ability to go after 2 max free agents. You could have a starting five of Wall, Lee, James, Bosh, and Lopez.

I just don’t understand why the Nets were so hasty to pick up Yi’s contract. They could have picked up the option at any time after the season. If they were to decide to waive Keyon and not owe Yi 4 mil next year, that would have given them an additional 7.5 million. That would have given them a shot to land a guy like Lebron and another top tier FA (Lopez, Harris, Lee, lottery pick in 2010).

As currently constituted, however, I would love to see Lebron and David Lee here next year.

I think what the Nets have in assets is worth more then the difference in cap space between the Nets and Knicks.
Knicks lack of draft picks and talent (other then Lee).
To me the real compitition is between the Nets and the Heat and Bulls. They each have franchise player with room for a second. I think the Knicks went to far personally.

I think it is CRUCIAL to point out that come July 1st the Knicks will only have 4 players – Eddy Curry, Danilo Gallinari, Toney Gouglas, and Wilson Chandler – under contract. They own two second round draft picks. So that right there is 6 players. Lets say they somehow sign to max players, they still only have 8 players and will need to use the mid-level (which I’m not sure they’ll have), the low-level (again I need someone to clarify them owning this as well) to fill the roster, as well as undrafted free agents and D-League talent.

We have Brook Lopez, Devin Harris, Courtney Lee, Terrence Williams, Kris Humphries, Yi Jialian, Jarvis Hayes, Keyon Dooling (maybe), and Chris Douglas-Roberts. Add two first round picks and our second and we have 12 players. Add a max contract and a close to max contract and we have 14. Finally finish the roster off with something – either way, despite the cap space advantage the Knicks have we are in infinitely better shape.

That’s a good point James. After the Knicks were to sign James and Bosh, who are they left with. There will be just Gallinari and Chandler. Where is the rest of the team coming from?

@Will
The Knicks won’t have any exceptions. They will only be allowed to fill out their roster with minimum salaried players. Also, Hayes isn’t under contract with us next year.

There’s also nothing stopping us from making a pitch to sign two max free agents. The difference between us & the Knicks is that we can unload more salary this summer without a problem. You can give away a Devin Harris for free & teams will take him. We also have a ton of picks if we wanted to bribe somebody to take Yi. The Knicks have no way of dumping Curry.

If there’s a pair of free agents that says they would sign here, but only if they both sign here, we can make that happen. That being said, I doubt it happens, because there are more attractive suitors out there.

We should sign Humphries, Dooling & Hayes to new three year contracts.
This will give us three core guys for our second unit along with leadership for the other young players on the team.
Just draft well for need and talent. Not just talent as in the past.
Trade Yi, C.Lee and J.Boone with future draft picks to get picks this year.
Draft, D.Cousins, W.Johnson, E.Turner & C.Aldrich.
We can pull this off with our future draft picks and the names mentioned.

Thanks for the info Net Income. Was very helpful because I was too lazy to figure out the projections for myself.