D-Will Reality Check

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Deron Williams for providing me with a much-needed reality check. You see, after news broke that he was coming to Jersey, I had all these crazy thoughts of making a run at the playoffs. Sure, I pretended that I could think objectively. I said that "they still have a ways to go", but really that was only to keep up the charade that I am an objective thinker. Really I just wanted to sing to the masses that we got D-Will and we got him for less than we offered for Melo. D-will is a real, legitimate superstar...something we have lacked since Jason Kidd lost the will to live because he was forced to play with Vince Carter...and something that will turn the fortunes of this franchise around. I was giddy.

And then today the obvious happened: D-Will committed his next year and a half to ... waiting and see what happens. He expressed initial concern over the trade, noting that "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about a team that was 17-40." Then when asked about signing an extension, he said "It all depends on how the next year goes...It's going to be a tough situation and it's going to be a tough year. There's so much that can go on between now and 2012 to even really discuss it. I won't know what I'm going to do until then." It was a nice reminder that even though we have him for the next year and a half, there is no guarantee that he will stick around for the long haul.

So what does that mean in the short term? Well, it means that GM Billy King has a LOT of work to do to show D-Will that he should stick around. The biggest asset that the franchise is obviously the brand new arena and new identity in Brooklyn. That is an easy way to get rid of the stink, but at the end of the day, they will still need to win games. That means King is going to have to be perfect with all his moves; after all this team is a year removed from 70 losses and will be lucky to avoid 55 this year.

Let's look at the current roster. Brook Lopez and Anthony Morrow should not be moved. Jordan Farmar, Travis Outlaw and Johan Petro are unfortunately signed to long-term deals. Sasha Vujacic and Kris Humphries are free-agents at the end of the year. Damion James and Brandon Wright are wild cards. Stephen Graham and Quinton Ross are useless. They have a lot of cap room and several draft picks so there is a lot of room to grow. The problem is that the 2011 free agency class is weak (Nene, David West, Zach Randolph) as is the 2011 Draft class.

If they are going to improve for the long-term they will need to spend their money wisely to add guys who fit the image of the team and are overlooked by the rest of the league. Then they will need to find a way to get rid of the terrible contracts handed to Outlaw, Farmar and Petro. The problem is that every team in the league knows how terrible those contracts are. There is no way that they give the Nets anything of significance unless they include Morrow in any trade.

I don't know how likely it is that he will be able to pull of any of the above. We may just need to hope that the Brookie Monster comes back, that Anthony Morrow learns how to do something beside shoot and that Damion James develops in 2011-2012. Oh, and one other thing - Deron Williams will need to take his player option of roughly $18 million for 2012-2013 and he will need to convince himself to stay in Brooklyn and then convince Dwight Howard to move North and not West.