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| The two guys in the middle; pretty important to the future of the Brooklyn Nets |
The latter, occurring just last month, was when the Nets emptied their roster by dealing Johan Petro (thank God), Anthony Morrow, Jordan Williams, Jordan Farmar, DeShawn Stevenson, a 2013 1st-round pick, and a 2017 2nd-round pick to the Atlanta Hawks for their All-Star shooting guard, Joe Johnson. Similarly to the D-Will trade, this deal went largely under the radar until it went through as JJ was not widely reported to have been on the Nets' offseason wishlist.
Appropriately so, a crazed and long-loyal Nets fan like myself was going mildly nuts after hearing of each of these blockbuster deals. In 2011, with the Deron deal, I was on vacation in the Caribbean with my family when my dad gets an email on his phone from the Nets' organization. When I read the headline announcing that my favorite NBA team had traded for a star, specifically one of the best points guards in the NBA, I flipped out.
No, I didn't care that we essentially gave up three 1st-round picks (including Favors, selected in the draft preceding that season) for D-Will, I only cared that the Nets had finally gotten the franchise point guard that we had been searching for since trading Jason Kidd to the Mavericks a few years prior. I immediately dropped my regrets about missing out on Carmelo and didn't even care he went to the most-hated basketball team in my mind, the Knicks.
That trade sent my mind into visions of grandeur. Thoughts of D-Will pairing up with Dwight Howard, a pending free agent at that time, shot across my feverish brain as I started to dream about a Nets team that had some semblance of national relevance, which has been missing from the team since the back-to-back Finals appearances in the early 2000s.
As we Nets fans know way too well, my aspirations for a Dwight and Deron combo in Brooklyn were jerked around and eventually shattered by the incredibly fickle and changing mind of the former Orlando Magic and current Los Angeles Laker center. The Dwightmare wrapped around my mind for months and months and when it eventually came to an end, I was devastated and back to my normal, pessimistic, and gloomy thoughts about my Nets, pondering how many years it would be until we returned to the playoffs yet again.
But wait, I was forgetting something. In all my mental devotion to Howard, I seemed to forget that Billy King did end up making a move for one superstar this past offseason. Of course, that player's name was, and still is, Joe Johnson, a cast-off from the fading Atlanta Hawks who has languished for years with a team that routinely played in front of a half-full home stadium in Phillips Arena and consistently lost in the opening round of the Eastern Conference playoffs, even with more than enough talent to make it further in the postseason.
Johnson is a an offensive juggernaut whose main weakness on that side of the court is his propensity for hogging the ball and dramatically slowing down and decreasing the efficiency of his team's offensive sets, illustrated by his popular but not-so-nice nickname of "Iso-Joe". However, he does have an incredible amount of talent, especially in his knockdown perimeter jumpshot. "Oh", but people say, "Joe Johnson can't win in the playoffs, his team barely makes it past the first round every year that he is the center of attention and the team's best player".
No, I say to those people, Joe can be part of a core of a team that makes it deep into the playoffs. The only problem is that he has never had the chance to play with an elite point guard for more than one season at a time (Disclaimer: Steve Nash was only in Phoenix at the same time as Joe for one season, the 2004-05 campaign).
Now, having the ability to play with someone at the point guard of Deron's caliber for this season, and for years beyond, JJ will finally have the chance to take a significant load off of his shoulders and can worry about finding his shots on the floor and having D-Will feed him the ball. Previously, Joe would have to make his own shots for himself, leading to his many isolation sets and horrendously forced 3-pointers attempted as the shot clock was expiring.
No more of that for Joe, with Deron running the point he can drop everything else and focus on the thing he does best: shoot. Throw in the occasional drive to the hoop, and Johnson is primed for one of, if not the best, season of his NBA career.
Don't worry, I didn't forget about D-Will. Sure, playing with an elite point guard is sure to be a boon to JJ's career but playing with an elite shooting guard is sure to have the same, if not similar, effect to Deron. With the Jazz and Nets his whole career, D-Will has never played with any swing man or general wing player who could even be mentioned in a conversation about elite NBA players. If I were to approximate, Wesley Matthews is the best 2-guard Deron has ever played with in his NBA career and although a decent player, Matthews is ridiculously far from being any sort of star.
Like the effect an elite point guard will have on Joe, playing with an elite shooting guard will let D-Will focus more on passing instead of trying to do everything by himself on offense, something he has done in his Nets tenure due to a lack of surrounding team talent which hasn't turned out very well for him.
Joe Johnson and Deron Williams couldn't have gotten much luckier at this point in their NBA careers to end up on the same squad. The interesting timing and circumstances of their establishment as teammates with the Brooklyn Nets is very interesting and may have necessitated some divine intervention. Who knows, they could end up being a match in heaven.
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