Sixers

Billy King Has Singlehandedly Ruined the Brooklyn Nets

By Kyle Scott

Published: Dec 6th, 2013 · 4:17 PM EST

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The Nets are 5-14. From Business Insider:

The Nets expected to be the second best team in the East, largely because of the blockbuster trade with the Boston Celtics that sent two future hall of famers to Brooklyn.

Here’s that trade, to refresh:

Nets got: Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Jason Terry

Celtics got: Kris Humphries, Gerald Wallace, three future first-round picks

The trade was the type of aggressive, win-now move that we see from big-spending franchises from time to time.

But the Nets didn’t just sacrifice young talent a year or two down the round, the sacrificed the ENTIRE FUTURE of the franchise. They currently have no draft picks until 2019, and no cap room until 2017.

GAH!

I truly have no idea how Billy King got hired again after a decade with the Sixers. He lucked into GM’ing a team with Allen Iverson and wasted several years of his existence in the process. If you’ll recall, that Finals team in 2001 was filled with a bunch of defensive-minded has-beens and slugs that were mostly picked out by Larry Brown to get the hell out of Iveron’s way and go get rebounds. I give King little, if any, credit for that. And then he just saddled the Sixers with bad contracts, given to mediocre players, and the net result was the hastened demise of Iverson’s prime. He borderline should’ve been jailed for the Matt Geiger and Samuel Dalembert contracts alone. Now his blockbuster deal to bring 702-year-olds Pierce, Garnett and Terry to Brooklyn – which was quickly becoming a cool franchise – has, predictably, backfired and left the Nets without their own first round draft pick (which will likely be a good one) UNTIL 2019!

UPDATE:

@CrossingBroad Fun fact- the Nets r paying twice as much in just luxury tax as the Sixers r in total salary….and have two less wins

— Eliot Shorr-Parks (@EliotShorrParks) December 6, 2013

H/T to (@Banditmax)