No contract in the NBA is untradable. Look no farther than the Brooklyn Nets, who swooped in to take Joe Johnson and his massive contract off the hands of the Atlanta Hawks. Before that we saw guys like Gilbert Arenas get moved when it made no sense. As Kevin Garnett has screamed into our television sets, “Anything is possible.”
That said, some contracts are pretty darn close to impossible to move — and Deron Williams has one of them.
D-Will has gone from a guy mentioned in the same breath with Chris Paul to a good, above-average point guard who is vastly overpaid — he has three years, $63 million left on his contract. Ankle injuries have slowed him down, and he likely will have another surgery on those this summer.
But after a disappointing playoff run where he could not lead the Nets as was the plan, they will consider moving him, reports the New York guru that is Howard Beck of Bleacher Report.
There is an alternative, sources say, the Nets will not rule out: They could look to trade Williams this summer, retool around (Joe) Johnson and (Brook) Lopez, squeeze one more run out of Pierce and Garnett and hope for the best.
It’s hard to say what the Nets might get for a 29-year-old former All-Star with bad ankles and $63 million left on his contract, but it’s worth exploring. The Houston Rockets tried to acquire Williams last December, so it’s not inconceivable that another team desperate for point-guard help might inquire.
The problem for the Nets is this — a team might take Williams off your hands but you’re going to have to give them something they really want in addition. A sweetener if you will. The Nets don’t have a lot of those to offer up, they don’t have a first-round pick they could trade until 2020. There are not players on the roster that will thrill other teams, Mirza Teletovic and Mason Plumlee are the only names teams might consider.
As we told you before, making moves thinking only of the short term is a trademark of Nets GM Billy King, and owner Mikhail Prokhorov is encouraging that urge. He wants to win now, money be damned, so spend $190 million on payroll and taxes. Go collect big names like Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce, don’t worry about the price.
Beck gets into all the problems that causes for the Nets, but in the end their biggest problem is the Deron Williams they got and signed to a max contract is not the Deron Williams they thought they were getting. If the Nets are going to turn things around and really contend in the short term, Williams has to revert to his old form or they have to move him and build in another direction.
Either of those outcomes are long shots.