How the Nets actually got a ‘lot’ for Kyle Korver ... It’s not what you think

As it turns out, the Nets did get a whole lot for Kyle Korver in 2003.

A parking lot, actually.

In a podcast with ESPN’s Ryan Russillo, Adrian Wojnarowski revealed the new angle of the infamous Draft Night deal in which the 76ers, whose GM was Billy King, paid $125,000 for the rights to the 51st pick, which Philly used to take Korver.

It’s been well known that the Nets used part of the money to buy a copier (that could also fax and collate!) but not that it was also used in another project at the New Jersey Nets then-headquarters in East Rutherford, N.J.

Give it to us, Woj...

“They traded a second round pick to Philly that turned out to be Kyle Korver, and the Nets’ real goal with it financially was they wanted money for a new color copier and I think they paid for a parking lot at the practice facility,” Woj told Russillo, recounting a conversation with Bobby Marks, who worked in the Nets front office. “And I said to Bobby, the copier’s long since broken, but the player still works, you know?”

There it is ... a parking lot.

“We could do a weekly 15-minute segment on crazy Net stories from Bobby’s 20 years there and never duplicate one,” Woj added.

Woj, who covered the Nets for The Record at the time, added some details, like the night the Nets drafted Seton Hall’s Eddie Griffin, who was incredibly talented but troubled player.

Days before, Woj recalled, Thorn had told him he learned his lesson in Chicago and wasn’t going to draft any more head cases. So, Woj was stunned by the choice ... not knowing the Nets and Rockets had a deal to trade Griffin, taken at No. 7, for three lower picks at Nos. 13, 18 and 23, which became Richard Jefferson, Jason Collins and Brandon Armstrong. (The Nets considered taking RJ’s Arizona teammate, Gilbert Arenas, but went with Armstrong.)

Woj was enraged and wrote a column attacking Thorn’s choice of Griffin, who had among other things slugged his Seton Hall point guard at half time for not passing him the ball. When he learned of the trade, he called The Record and begged his editor to kill the piece and permit him to write another to replace it. In that column, Woj praised Thorn for learning his lesson.

“So, I get a call from Rod that morning and he said to me – I guess he was taking a lot of heat from fans and stuff – and he called me up that morning and he said, ‘Hey, I appreciate the column you wrote. I appreciate it. I’m taking a lot of heat for this.’ And I said, ‘well, if you saw the column I had written about you that never appeared in the paper, you wouldn’t be thanking me.’ And he said to be in that West Virginia accent, ‘Woj, if I drafted Eddie Griffin, I would’ve ripped me, too.’”

Like he said, he’s got a million of them.