Joe Johnson or Deron Williams: Who Should Brooklyn Nets Be Trying to Move More?
The Brooklyn Nets are trying to save money. Relieving themselves of Joe Johnson's or Deron Williams' contract would be a start.
Brooklyn has paid well into the luxury tax in consecutive years, and for what? Forty-four victories and a second-round playoff exit two seasons ago followed by an even worse showing in 2014-15.
Now, ownership is turning a bit more frugal. It's not cheap to avoid a repeater tax if you aren't fielding a championship-level team. It's only the intelligent thing to do.
Why throw away all that dough for a club that's coming off a 38-win season and could see a victory decrease for a third consecutive year in 2015-16?
Head into the tax when you have a team you think can compete. Even the smartest and richest organizations avoid the luxury tax when they know they're bound to struggle. The Nets are doing the same—and the decline in the Russian economy surely isn't making owner Mikhail Prokhorov's decision much harder.
So when we talk about saving dollars, who do we keep coming back to? It's the same darn guys every time: Williams and Johnson.
"We're going to explore all options, as we have," general manager Billy King said at the end of the season, via Tim Bontemps of the New York Post. "Will there be a trade? There could be, but I'm not sure."
Brooklyn didn't have to be in this position. Like many Nets-related issues (the lack of draft picks, the cap-strangling deals, the aging roster), this wound is self-inflicted.
Per Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski (h/t Nets Daily) King could've pulled off a midseason deal that sent Williams to the Sacramento Kings, but in an effort to hold onto young talent, the Nets took Mason Plumlee off the table during trade discussions. The Kings refused to part with Derrick Williams, Darren Collison and Jason Thompson for a package that didn't include Plumlee, who was piecing together the best stretch of his career at that time in December.
Thinking about those negotiations now—realizing there was actually a time when one team actively wanted Deron Williams' contract and another thought the price of getting rid of it wasn't worth giving up a backup center—it's like watching the two most desperate third-graders in class attempt to trade lunches.
Billy's mom packed him a salad, which no normal third-grader wants—except for Johnny, who will take the salad if Billy also gives him the side of pudding in his lunch box, even though Gary just picked his nose and then stuck his hand in the pudding three minutes ago.
Classic Gary. Gross.
Now, Johnny is trying to take this salad so he can get the contaminated pudding, but Billy refuses to give up the dessert even though it's got far too much Gary in it to be edible. Billy's being stingy with the unusable pudding, no one's getting anything out of the salad and somehow, everyone involved is making a terrible decision.
A non-trade can sometimes be the worst move a team can make. Holding back on that potential Williams deal with Sacramento may have been one of those moments for the Nets, who—you'd have to assume—would give up a lifetime supply of pudding if it meant getting to move the final two years of Williams' deal today.
Of course, Plumlee falling off a cliff after the All-Star break (and his inability to play alongside Brook Lopez) contributes mightily to that.
If you're talking strictly trying to unload dollars, Williams would clearly be the choice to move—for every obvious reason.
He may have come on a little stronger near the end of the regular season, but he isn't nearly the performer that Johnson is at this stage in his career. Johnson was probably the Nets' most consistent player this past season (since Lopez struggled for the first half of the year and Thaddeus Young didn't even arrive until February).
We can go by efficiency, defense or health to compare Johnson and Williams; however you want to do it, you're going to come away with the opinion that Johnson is the better player, even if he is three years older.
What a difference a half-season can make? At this point, it's difficult to imagine anyone would want to take on the two years and $43 million the Nets owe Williams. Maybe Brooklyn would be happier to rid itself of Williams' money than Johnson's because of the extra year, but that tacked-on season makes him that much more unmovable.
In the end, Johnson is the more realistic trade commodity.
It feels like we've heard fans complain about Johnson's contract situation since the Dominique Wilkins days in Atlanta (even if he did just sign his six-year, $119 million deal before the 2010 season). But—don't fall out of your seat upon reading this—it's not that bad of a contract anymore.
[Audience gasp]
Johnson hits free agency next summer. And any expiring deal is tradeable, especially when it involves someone who is a starting-quality player. The bigger issue is finding enough aggregate salary to bring back in a trade for the $24.8 million he's owed in 2015-16.
Cost-cutting mode is a new mentality under the current ownership group, which is shopping Jarrett Jack, too, as ESPN's Marc Stein reported earlier this week.
Brooklyn has about $58.6 million on payroll for next season (the salary cap projects to be about $67 million), but that doesn't include the money it'll end up ponying up for Lopez (player option) and Young (early termination option) if it has its way. And make no mistake about it: The Nets want both of those guys playing 41 games at Barclays Center next season.
When you win only 38 games and your future is hamstrung from a lack of picks and salary-cap inflexibility, you might as well do your best to keep around the little good you produced.
For the Nets, that good was Lopez's second half and Young's contributions. It was the second-half development of Bojan Bogdanovic's offensive game, which could be enhanced if Brooklyn were able to unload Johnson, turning its second-year small forward into the team's go-to wing scorer.
There are certainly teams who would be interested in taking on the final year of Johnson's deal. Heck, Wojnarowski reported that the Nets had deep midseason discussions about sending J.J. to the Charlotte Hornets for Lance Stephenson, Gerald Henderson and Marvin Williams.
Maybe a deal of that sort can be revived, since Brooklyn wouldn't be committing to any money beyond 2016 with Henderson and Williams hitting free agency next summer and with Stephenson's 2016-17 season set up as a team option.
The Nets wouldn't get 100 cents on the dollar if they were able to dump either Johnson or Williams, but they could probably get closest to full value by jettisoning the man on an expiring deal. That's why Johnson is possibly on the way out, and it's why Williams could end up surviving in Brooklyn for at least another season.
Follow Fred Katz on Twitter at @FredKatz.
Unless otherwise noted, all statistics are current as of May 28 and are courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com.
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