Pretend Howard and Deron aren't even remote possibilities in your mind. Try to exclude the 'yeah well now that we know Dwight WAS a possibility there's no turning back'.....because that will bring you to a very deep, dank, dark place this Christmas season......so anyhow, rewind to exactly a year ago today:

Moving into Brooklyn next year.....TONS of draft picks in the most loaded draft since LeBron, Wade, Anthony....Kaman, David West, Mo Williams, Perkins (later picks).....you can literally build a team from a great draft class. If we don't get shafted by that ping pong ball, we get Wall. Obviously interior raw rookies like Favors pick up fouls easier and get less playing time than guards as rooks....so understandably to some of you, a top 3 pick doesn't seem earth-shattering.

Would that blueprint be such a bad thing? The public is going to be puking 'Do Nets shop Deron now?' all over the media outlets as we drop in the standings....get used to it. The whole OKC approach seemed great to a lot of people here a year ago. Those rookies will offer enough cap flexibility to sign at least one 'good' FA (not a max contract).

Now we'd have young players with absolutely no pressure on them that WANT to be in Brooklyn starting off our new era. As seen with OKC, those teams with no pressure can be a real scare if they sneak into the playoffs against an aging 1, 2, 3 seed. The reason I bring this up is because a lot of us seem to be in denial...I've heard people talking about trading for Kaman now....seriously. It's going to get ugly, and Deron is going to be unhappy....there's a GREAT chance we do not get Howard via trade this season. Look on the bright side.