Trade Speculation Candidate: Jordan Farmar

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This post will be the first in a series that I will do highlighting potential trades involving Nets players who have a good chance of being dealt by this season's trade deadline, which falls on March 15th. Today's focus is point guard Jordan Farmar.


Since the Nets signed Farmar as a free agent from the Los Angeles Lakers two offseasons ago, he has emerged as a quality back-up point guard who could probably start for a few NBA teams. Farmar is good at leading the New Jersey offense and, so far this season, he has been prolific from 3-point range, shooting threes at a high 47 percent rate. However, the Nets would like to get rid of Jordan's 2-yr, $8 million contract to clear out cap space to spend this offseason, hopefully on Deron Williams and Dwight Howard. Let's take a look at three trade scenarios that would get rid of Farmar's contract, improve the Nets team, and clear cap room for this offseason.

Trade #1- Nets trade Farmar and a 2012 2nd-round pick to the Milwaukee Bucks for SF Carlos Delfino
Obviously, this trade helps out with the Nets urgent need for a healthy and somewhat talented small forward as Delfino is a good all-around player who is known especially for his shot. Nets fans may know Delfino because he irrationally always performs well against New Jersey and it would be nice to not have to face him anymore on the opposing side. Another bonus is that his contract ends after this season so if Delfino just doesn't work out in Avery Johnson's offense, the team can just let him go and have his salary come off of the cap for this offseason.

Milwaukee would want to do this trade because Farmar is a total upgrade at back-up point guard for the Bucks. Right now, Shaun Livingston and Ben Udrih are Milwaukee's current reserves at point guards. Livingston just isn't the player he used to be after multiple injuries and he doesn't provide much anymore on offense or defense. Udrih is actually a solid player (A good comparison would be Goran Dragic on Houston; both are lefties with really good shots, especially from three-point range) but his $6.925 million contract is one that Milwaukee wants to get rid of badly. Udrih will probably be amnestied after this season so Farmar would be the Bucks' #1 back-up behind Brandon Jennings next season and he would help Milwaukee out a lot with scoring, which has been a major problem for that team the whole season.

Game 30 Recap: Grizzlies 105, Nets 100

Marreese Speights, of all people, absolutely dominated the  Nets on the boards tonight

I have simply run out of adjectives to describe the wretched way in which this Nets team loses games so for tonight, I'll create my own: excruciatinglyhorrendous. Yep, that pretty much sums up this 105-100 loss that the Nets suffered against the Memphis Grizzlies at Prudential Center tonight. The loss was the 7th-straight for the Nets and was actually very close throughout but later in the game, the Nets simply couldn't preserve a 4th-quarter lead that was as big as 5 points with 7:11 left.


To get to that point of the game, the Nets and Grizzlies switched off undergoing extended scoring runs which served as the multiple lead and momentum changes of the contest. The Nets had longer runs of 15 unanswered in the 1st, 13 unanswered in the 2nd, and even 11 unanswered in the 3rd. Memphis fought off all of these runs with multiple smaller runs of their own and found themselves down by 5 points roughly halfway through the 4th after an Anthony Morrow jump-shot.


Propelled by smothering defense by Memphis, disastrous decision-making by themselves, compounded with poor offensive sets and shot attempts, the Nets gave back the lead to the Grizzlies via a 9-2 Memphis run culminating in a wide open Tony Allen 3-pointer which made the score 95-93 in favor of the Grizz. Then, Marshon Brooks and Deron Williams promptly committed two turnovers each in the last 2:40 of the game which allowed Memphis to secure the win.

Game 30 Preview: Memphis Grizzlies (15-14) at Nets (8-21)

Selected to his 1st All-Star Game this season, Marc Gasol will be tough for the undermanned Nets to guard

UPDATE: As per ESPNNewYork.com's Mike Mazzeo, Shawne Williams will miss tonight's game (sore shoulder) and DeShawn Stevenson will return from his knee injury and will indeed start tonight. I think that's the happiest feeling I have had regarding the Nets in awhile. 


The Nets look to break their current six-game losing streak against the Western Conference fringe-playoff team, the Memphis Grizzlies. The injury-depleted Nets will be helped out by the presence of recent D-League call-up, small forward Andre Emmett who has shown in the NBDL that he can do basically everything on the court to help teams win games as he can shoot, score at the hoop, rebound well, and even has solid court vision of the passing lanes. I'm not saying he's the savior, actually, he's far from it. However, he will undoubtedly help this team out in at least some way, even if that impact is only felt in a few minutes of playing time.

Background on Memphis 
Like I said above, the Grizzlies are a talented team, but in the tough Western Conference, they are only tied for the 8th-seed with Portland. If Memphis was in the East, they would have been the 8th-seed outright and two games in the loss column out of the 7th-seed. I like to compare Memphis to the Atlanta Hawks because both teams have tons of talent on their respective rosters but seem to underachieve year-in and year-out. It is also important to remember that, like the Nets, the Grizzlies are missed their best big man, power forward Zach Randolph, due to injury so the whole "injury" excuse doesn't seem to be in play this game for the oft-injured Nets.