NBA Rumors: Why Deron Williams Will Spurn NJ Nets for Dallas Mavericks
New Jersey Nets general manager Billy King has been rolling the dice all season when it comes to All-Star point guard Deron Williams' pending free agency.
Yet the longer you stay at the table, eventually you are going to crap out.
King is no exception, as he put all of his chips on landing Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard before the trade deadline, which would have assured that Williams would be spending the next few seasons in a Nets uniform.
Now King is resorting to other tactics, including offering Williams the unofficial title of "assistant GM" in an attempt to try to convince Williams to stay.
However, at the end of the day, it looks like King is just grasping at straws, as barring a major trade prior to the NBA draft in June, Williams is pretty much all but gone.
By the sounds of things, he's looking forward to it as well, telling Yahoo! Sports NBA writer Marc J. Spears, “I didn’t ask to be here. I got traded. I didn’t come here being a free agent. This is the first time that I’m a free agent in my career.”
King can try to put on a show and offer Williams the world, but at the end of the day even he probably realizes by now that he has next to no shot at retaining Williams.
The Dallas Mavericks will be waiting and it will be to good of an opportunity to pass on.
While both New Jersey and Dallas will be in position to offer Williams a max-deal, at the end of the day the opportunity to win will win out.
With Williams, the Mavericks are championship contenders.
The same can't be said for the Nets, who even with Williams in the fold are very far away from competing for a title.
Not only is Dallas the hometown of Williams, but with Mark Cuban owning the team, he knows that moves will continue to be made in order to keep Dallas competitive.
Williams could be paired with Dirk Nowitzki for the final years of his career, and even though Nowitzki is 33 years of age, he's a much bigger selling piece then anything New Jersey currently has. He still has two or three seasons left playing at a high level.
Not only are coming home and playing with Nowitzki good selling pieces, but the Mavs will also be in position to take a run at Howard after next season as well. That's really all the selling points that Cuban will have to make.
While he's wearing a Nets uniform right now, Dallas is definitely on Williams' mind, telling Spears:
"“People know how I am so they’re not going to say anything to me. They’d definitely love for me to play [in Dallas]. I know that. I’ve known that my whole career. The fans on Twitter, a lot of Dallas fans on Twitter, tell me to come back home. We’ll see.”
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Even if the Nets can use their new Brooklyn arena as a selling point, how long will it take until New Jersey's competitive? They are certainly more than a couple pieces away.
At the end of the day, Dallas is simply a far better attraction and gives Williams the opportunity to win a championship, which ultimately is what this is all about.
As for King and the Nets, they won't go down without a fight, but you know what happens when you keep rolling the dice.
You go home empty-handed.
