The Nets pulled together for a late season run to the playoffs and pushed the top-seeded Hawks in the opening round, but this wasn’t a successful season, GM Billy King said today to reporters, including Newsday’s Roderick Boone, at his end-of-season press conference (Twitter link). The GM didn’t address rumors that he’s close to an extension, but he had many more revelatory comments, as we’ll run down here. All links go to Twitter, unless otherwise noted:
- The team’s long-term plan is to build around Brook Lopez and Thaddeus Young, King said, according to Andy Vasquez of The Record. Lopez and Young haven’t made decisions about their respective player options yet, but King said the Nets want them back regardless of whether they opt in or not, notes Tim Bontemps of the New York Post.
- King said the Nets explored trading every player on the roster at some point during the season, Boone notes, and King wouldn’t rule out trades when he added that the team would continue to look into all possibilities with Lopez, Deron Williams and Joe Johnson, observes Devin Kharpertian of The Brooklyn Game.
- Brooklyn, slated to pick 29th and 41st overall in June, will continue an annual tradition of trying to trade up, King said, as Kharpertian relays, but the GM insisted he’ll value draft assets more highly than in the past. “I don’t expect us to be trading any of [our future draft picks],” King said, according to Kharpertian. “We’ve done that.”
- The Nets will extend the more than $4.21MM qualifying offer required to match competing NBA offers for Mirza Teletovic in free agency this summer, King confirmed, nonetheless adding that the market will dictate the forward’s next deal, as Bontemps notes.
- The team would like a new deal with Alan Anderson, King said, according to Lenn Robbins of Nets.com, but the GM also said that the swingman may need a procedure on his ankle to deal with bone spurs, Bontemps observes.
- The goal is to avoid the luxury tax next season, and the repeat-offender penalties that would come with it, but the Nets will stay above the tax line if it’s the right thing to do, according to King, as Kharpertian relays. That’s similar to what owner Mikhail Prokhorov said last month (non-Twitter link), but it conflicts with what Bontemps has heard (non-Twitter link) from sources who’ve said the team has no interest in remaining a taxpayer.
- King said the Nets can’t keep turning the roster over from year to year and added that internal improvement is necessary, Boone notes. King pointed to rookies Bojan Bogdanovic, Markel Brown and Cory Jefferson as players who can be parts of the rotation going forward, according to Bontemps.