Kris Humphries Signing Proves Nets Have Given Up on Dwight Howard

The New Jersey Nets may have just taken their hat out of the Dwight Howard trade sweepstakes.

After holding out for as long as possible, the Nets inked free agent power forward Kris Humphries to a one-year deal worth $8M according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports.
They signed the deal just in time for him to suit up for Wednesday’s preseason game against the New York Knicks.

The move essentially fills out the Nets roster, and they appear to be done altering their team for the upcoming season—quite the bummer for fans hoping a Howard trade would go down.

Wojnarowski reports that Humphries was seeking a multi-year deal that would pay him over $10M annually. but the Nets wanted to make sure they had the cap space to pursue Howard in the summer.

The Nets had a potential three-team deal with the Magic and the Trail Blazers lined up before Orlando GM Otis Smith announced that trade talks were going to be put on hold.

After Howard scored a mere five points and six rebounds in the Magic’s embarrassing blowout to the Miami Heat in the first preseason game of the year, speculation was running rampant that the trade talks would be back on. Magic coach Stan Van Gundy isn’t happy, and it’s the sort of cloud that can completely ruin an entire season.

But for now it looks like the Nets are going to be forced to wait.  They were patient in this whole free agent frenzy and didn’t do something crazy for Howard like surrendering their next five first round picks. At this point, they just need to cross their fingers and hope the LA Lakers don’t pull off a mid-season deal for “Superman”.  It’s not the end of the world but it does force the New Jersey faithful to be patient…again.

For now, they get another year of a 6-11 lanky guy that scores 10 points and grabs 10 rebounds a game.