Nets are “done” and are officially out of Josh Smith talks, per source.

— David Aldridge (@daldridgetnt) February 21, 2013

That’s the question that remains as the NBA approaches today’s trade deadline, and one that had the Nets smack in the middle of the annual rumor mill as they prepared to face the Bucks last night.

“I don’t know,” Nets interim coach P.J. Carlesimo said before the game when asked if he thought his team would look the same after today’s deadline.

Because of Prokhorov’s willingness to spend, and because of their hole at power forward, the Nets have been linked to the top player available, Atlanta’s Josh Smith — who also happens to play power forward. But while Yahoo! Sports reported the Nets, along with the Bucks and Suns, are the three likeliest destinations for Smith, it still seems unlikely the Nets would be able to pull off such a deal.

The biggest impediment in any deal for a player such as Smith or Boston’s Paul Pierce is the fact the Nets are including power forward Kris Humphries in any such deal because of his $12 million salary. Though that would make the salaries match in a trade for a big name such as Smith or Pierce, teams are reluctant to have to take on the $12 million Humphries is owed next season, as well.

A league source said there was “not much” to reports of the Nets making a run at Pierce, who has spent his entire career with the Celtics and who has a partially guaranteed salary for next year of just $4 million.”

http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/nets/trade_talk_swirls_mUAmHYjuj4VLgddnW1ayvL

Nets fans haven’t learned that it’s the player you don’t chase (Deron Williams), who ends up on the team.

We applaud the effort nonetheless, especially when a fan takes the time
to put together a website dedicated to the pursuit of a player still a
year from becoming a free agent.

The goal, as mapped out by on www.dwightbound.com, is for Howard to team up with Williams for the move to Brooklyn.
Any report of Howard’s next destination is speculation at this point
considering we have playoffs, a collective bargaining agreement and free
agency to get through.

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/nets/2011/04/nets-fans-starting-the-movement-for-dwight-howard

New Jersey and Denver were moving from including Utah’s Andrei
Kirilenko(notes) and Charlotte’s Boris Diaw(notes) in the trade
packages, front-office sources said, and trying to find trade partners
in both the Eastern and Western conferences. Denver and New Jersey were
trying to line up new scenarios that still would result with Anthony in
New Jersey and Derrick Favors(notes) and Nets draft picks in Denver,
sources said.

The four-team trade fell apart when Denver kept trying to include more of its players in deals to spare themselves a bigger luxury-tax bill that would’ve come with the arrivals of Kirilenko and Favors, sources said. The proposed trade would have added $4.5 million in salary to their payroll plus another $4.5 million in luxury tax.

Sources say that the Nuggets have strong interest in trying to do a deal with Philadelphia that included swingman Andre Iguodala, but the Sixers’ inability to get a commitment out of Anthony that he would sign a contract extension with them made the point moot.

One of the biggest obstacles with cutting a deal with the Nuggets, league executives said, continues to be the peculiar and unclear power structure of the Denver front office. What had been the case under the previous regime has carried over with new vice president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri, the owner’s son, Josh Kroenke, and adviser Bret Bearup: No one talking to the Nuggets is sure who’s in charge, who’s making the decision and who can get everyone in agreement.

Anthony arrived at Denver’s training camp for media day on Monday, but didn’t engage in much of the normal promotional shots for the team’s Altitude television network and game-night operations, a league source said.

The Nuggets star had hoped a deal would’ve been in place before he reported for the start of camp, a league source said, but decided against openly criticizing the organization in his media remarks. Instead, he was noncommittal about his future in Denver. He can become a free agent at the end of the season and so far has rejected a three-year, $65 million contract extension.

http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=An1Ikc8ERGr.3wNgSwKmoa85nYcB?slug=ys-anthonynuggets092710

The Denver Nuggets and New Jersey are having ongoing discussions centered on No. 3 overall pick Derrick Favors(notes) and the Nets’ 2011 first-round pick and a protected 2012 first-rounder the Nets received from the Golden State Warriors going back to the Nuggets. The proposed trade also would involve the Utah Jazz and Charlotte Bobcats. Under the proposal, league sources said the Nets would also send point guard Devin Harris to the Bobcats, who would move forward Boris Diaw to the Jazz, who would send forward Andrei Kirilenko to the Nuggets to complete what one front-office source described as a “very complicated” deal.

One more potential hindrance to the trade is the Nets want point guard D.J. Augustin from the Bobcats to help offset the loss of Harris, league sources said. So far, Charlotte has shown a reluctance to part with the young point guard in this trade. General manager Rod Higgins and coach Larry Brown want to try to keep him to play behind Harris.

The Nets would have only Jordan Farmar, who left the Los Angeles Lakers in the summer as a free agent, as an experienced point guard.

“That could still be a sticking point,” one source told Yahoo! Sports.

Still, the Nets are motivated to smooth over everything else should they get a commitment from Anthony to sign an extension with them. The Nets have reshaped the franchise under new Russian billionaire owner, Mikhail Prokhorov. They have resources unmatched in the NBA, and will move out of the decrepit Meadowlands arena and into the state-of-the-state Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., this season. The Nets are likely to spend two years in Newark before moving into their eventual new arena in Brooklyn.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=ArTqF3jV7ZrYfeK8nFsMZSW8vLYF?slug=aw-netsanthony092410

Nets spokesman Barry Baum said today the team filed paperwork with the
National Basketball Association earlier this week. If accepted, the
change would become official before the 2012-13 season, when the Nets
plan to move to Brooklyn’s new Barclays Center.

“The do*****ents are already submitted to the NBA office,” Prokhorov said
in an interview with Forbes Russia magazine. “The name change will
happen in 2012.”

Any NBA team with the intention of changing its name, logo or uniform must apply to the league 25 months before the start of the season in which it intends to unveil the change. The final decision rests with the NBA’s 30-member Board of Directors.

As of right now, no specific change has been detailed in the application, Baum said in a telephone interview.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-11/nba-s-new-jersey-nets-file-paperwork-to-change-team-s-name-in-2012.html

After breaking into the coaching business under Mark Cuban in Dallas and
interviewing with New Orleans and Atlanta in recent weeks, Johnson on
Wednesday struck a verbal agreement to coach Prokhorov’s Nets.

Although the sides might need the rest of the week to finalize what
sources close to the situation say will be a three-year contract,
Johnson confirmed the agreement in a Wednesday afternoon interview with
ESPN’s Hannah Storm.

"We’re excited about it," Johnson told Storm. "We’ve come to a verbal agreement and hopefully the Nets will have an official announcement tomorrow. But, yes, I am headed to New Jersey."

Johnson, whose gaudy career winning percentage of .735 is the highest in league history, is completing his second season with ESPN. He was fired in Dallas in May 2008, in spite of his 194-70 record, after consecutive first-round playoff defeats.

Taking the Nets’ job takes him out of the running in Atlanta after three face-to-face interviews with the Hawks, which followed a contentious end to Johnson’s candidacy with the Hornets after the New Orleans native was initially presumed to be the favorite with his hometown team.

The Hawks met with Johnson as recently as Saturday, when general manager Rick Sund came to his house in Houston. But Atlanta, according to NBA coaching sources, is now expected to choose by week’s end between Dallas Mavericks assistant Dwane Casey, holdover Hawks assistant Larry Drew and ESPN/ABC’s Mark Jackson.

http://sports.espn.go.com/new-york/nba/news/story?id=5268483

Tom Thibodeau is the one Thorn will watch most closely: The Boston
assistant coach — who is everybody’s flavor of the month since the
Celtics’ postseason resurgence — is on the verge of being offered a job
from the New Orleans Hornets.
But two of Thibodeau’s peers — both of them friends, who request anonymity because they are not authorized to speak for him — say that while he is understandably eager to jump head-first into his first head coaching opportunity, he also wants to sit down with Thorn before he commits to Hornets GM Jeff Bower.

The other guy pacing the floor is Avery Johnson, who will meet with Thorn Saturday, but that doesn’t necessarily make him a favorite for the Nets’ job.

Indeed, despite his brilliant record in his three-plus seasons in Dallas (a .735 winning percentage), Johnson hasn’t exactly been regarded as a hot commodity, and it is clear that he has asked for a high salary and personnel power from other teams.

But he is no longer the top candidate in New Orleans — which is his hometown team — because the ownership transfer to Gary Chouest, his primary advocate, has been delayed. And Johnson now has serious competition for the job in Atlanta, where GM Rick Sund has a relationship with the other frontrunner Dwane Casey.

So it is possible that Johnson, too, may jump at first good offer if it includes upward mobility.

Thorn said he felt no need to rush a few weeks ago, “because if you look at it realistically, most teams that are looking for a coach are not going to pay much,” he said. “I’m just saying I really like our chances of getting a very good coach. … I think the job here is more attractive than most, I really do.”

http://www.nj.com/nets/index.ssf/2010/05/tom_thibodeau_avery_johnson_to.html

League sources told FanHouse that Thorn inquired about Avery Johnson and
his interest in the Nets job through his representatives on Wednesday.
The former Dallas coach has already interviewed for openings in
Philadelphia and New Orleans and looked to be the frontrunner for the Hornets job, but he is believed to have interest in joining New Jersey.

An interview has not yet been scheduled, but Thorn — who has said he is hoping to have a coach in place before the June draft — is expected to begin interviewing with candidates soon. Yet while Johnson will certainly receive consideration, the Nets continue to hope the prospect of big money on two vital fronts can coerce Jeff Van Gundy to return to coaching: his potential salary and the team’s salary cap space.

Share36 Prokhorov’s well-chronicled riches and his passion for winning could mean a huge payday for Van Gundy. And considering the Nets were reportedly prepared to offer Duke and Team USA coach Mike Krzyzewski between $12 to $15 million per year before he made it clear he’s not interested, it remains possible that Van Gundy could be coerced.

Van Gundy — who has an overall record of 430-318 in 11 seasons with New York and Houston — hasn’t been on a bench since leaving the Rockets after the 2006-07 season and is now a television analyst. His brother, Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy, said recently he expects Jeff to resist the urge to return and remain with his family in Houston.

The Nets, of course, also offer financial flexibility when it comes to their roster as well. They’ll have approximately $26 million in cap space this summer, with Thorn looking to remake the roster after their franchise-worst record of 12-70. New Jersey has one of the game’s best young big men in second-year center Brook Lopez, and could have a chance at nabbing Kentucky point guard John Wall in the draft if they get the top pick in the May 18 lottery (their pick can be no worse than fourth). They’ll also have the 27th pick in the first round.

http://nba.fanhouse.com/2010/05/13/nets-reach-out-to-avery-johnson/

Before coaching the Magic in a playoff game against the Bobcats
Wednesday night, Stan Van Gundy told Fanhouse.com that it is clear to
him that his TV brother is unlikely to be pacing any sideline in the
near future.

"He hasn’t shown any great interest in getting back in," Stan Van Gundy said before Game 2 of Orlando’s first-round series against Charlotte, a 92-77 win.

Jeff Van Gundy is a television analyst and has not coached in the NBA since the end of the 2006-07 season, when he was fired as head coach of the Rockets.

"His family is happy the way it is now, and I’m not sure uprooting them now is what he wants to do," Stan Van Gundy said. "He hasn’t shown any inclination to do that. He likes what he’s doing – spending a lot of time with the family – and he works 50 days a year, which isn’t a bad job."

Other candidates include former Mavericks coach Avery Johnson and Boston assistant Tom Thibodeau, a Jeff Van Gundy disciple.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/2010/04/22/2010-04-22_stan_says_van_is_a_nogo_for_nets.html