Billy King has to stop gambling away the Nets' future
Billy King and the Brooklyn Nets can't help themselves.
If reports are to be believed, King, the Nets' general manager, is once again dipping into billionaire tycoon and owner Mikhail Prokhorov's bottomless coffers this summer.
The intended targets: Brook Lopez and Thaddeus Young. The total cost: $108 million over the next four years.
In doing so, the Nets will likely run their total team salary to over $90 million for the third consecutive season - all in an effort to reunite an aging team that won 38 games last season.
The Nets, as constructed, are barely a playoff team in the lowly Eastern Conference. Even with a clean bill of health - a tall order for Lopez's frequently fractured foot - the past three seasons have left little doubt: The Nets' core is not championship quality. It's not even conference finals quality.
Young and Lopez, both 27, are nice pieces. Young is a decent energy big with a skilled inside-out game that runs on his inexhaustible motor. A healthy Lopez is one of the league's best post scorers. They would be strong additions to any contender.
But the Nets aren't contenders. They're a collection of declining veterans with no upside. They should be carving future flexibility, not adding dead weight in bloated contracts. There's no sense in committing half the salary cap to two good (but far from great) players.
Sadly, if the Nets follow through with their signings, they will serve as the latest chapter in King's nightmarish "Choose Your Own Adventure" tenure as GM.
Only the adventures always end the same for the Nets: in sadness, characterized by a mismatched roster that's too hyped, too expensive, and too unsuccessful.
The Nets have failed in every endeavor under King. He's shuffled through four coaches in five seasons while failing to develop players, and blatantly wasted scant resources over a series of ill-conceived gambles.
Also: the Mason Plumlee trade means that since Brook Lopez was drafted, no Nets first rounder has lasted more than two seasons with the team
— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) June 26, 2015
King bet big on Deron Williams. He cost the Nets Derrick Favors and $67 million over the past four seasons, with another $63 million owed to Williams going forward. Williams lost his starting job to Jarrett Jack last season.
King bet big on Gerald Wallace. That gamble cost Brooklyn point guard Damian Lillard. Then, after King regaled Wallace with a four-year, $40-million contract, Wallace immediately regressed to the point of being unplayable.
King bet big on Joe Johnson. That cost the Nets two first-round picks and $62 million over the past three seasons, with another $25 million owed for 2015-16. The 35-year-old Johnson is a shell of his former self and posted a league-average PER of 14.1 last season.
King bet big on Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett. Two and a half combined seasons of mediocre veteran production have cost a first-round pick and three more to come.
Yet here's King again in 2015, doing what he always does, preparing to bet big on yet another hopeless venture. Spent for picks, King is going all-in with all of the money to chase very little payout.
When will it end for for the Nets?