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Analysis

The State of The King Address

Not to state the obvious but the Brooklyn Nets are a complete disaster. The Nets are 0-7 (all together now… AND COUNTING!) after losing to the Milwaukee Bucks for the second time in a week Saturday night. To make it worse, they are coached by former Nets head coach Jason Kidd. You may say he’s been gone for over a year, but if you think about it, his tenure was the last time the Brooklyn Nets were even a threat on a NBA schedule. Going into Wednesday’s game (or slaughter, depending on how you see it) against the Houston Rockets and James Harden fresh off back to back 40-point games, there are more questions than answers right now.

After Detroit Lions owner Martha Ford decided to fire the president and general manager in the middle of the season after a 1-7 start with no moves during the trade deadline, it got me to thinking…

What about Billy King?

To give Billy King credit, he did accomplish two things that the Brooklyn Nets really needed. One, he did get the team under the salary cap to avoid luxury tax penalties that would have been so high, everyone reading this could have had a “Holly Jolly Christmas” along with a slamming New Year’s party to boot. Two, he did deal with the Deron Williams situation.

On Monday, Billy King spoke with the Nets beat writers and gave head coach Lionel Hollins the dreaded “vote of confidence”, saying that his job was not in jeopardy.

Check out what he said courtesy of ESPN’s Mike Mazzeo…

“Not right now, no,” GM Billy King said. “Shoot I’m in the last year of my deal, too. And that’s why I think I said before it’s not just Lionel. We’re all in this together.”

Well that’s real big of Billy King, considering Hollins is like the 54th (actually the 4th) coach that the Nets have had since they have moved to Brooklyn. Lionel Hollins wasn’t around when the “Five Year Plan” was implemented. Lionel Hollins wasn’t around when Joe Johnson was traded out of Atlanta and the Hawks turned the assets and cap space into a number one seed in the East last year. Lionel Hollins wasn’t around when Danny Ainge’s dream came true to find a sucker… I mean a taker for all of the aging veterans on the Celtics roster to start building for the future. Did I forget to mention that the Celtics finished ahead of the Nets last year with the seventh seed?

Look, Brooklyn Nets fans don’t want to even talk about the Deron Williams fallout… again.

How about this collection of cast-offs, led by a point guard that got dropped by a rookie that will almost certainly be shown on “Shaqtin A Fool” this Thursday.

But have we forgotten how Billy King got the Brooklyn Nets in this mess?

“I’m not sitting in here shirking accountability… It stops at me. I’m the GM. You make decisions along the way, and it’s my job now to figure it out and turn it around. …It doesn’t happen overnight. We knew when we traded (the first-round) picks and went down this road (for Deron Williams, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce) that it doesn’t go well you have to dig yourself out of it, and that’s what we’re doing now.”

Okay, if Billy King is talking about digging out of a hole, I have a question, concern, I don’t know an observation…

How do we define a current 0-7 team that is dead last in scoring and at the bottom of the league in defense? Grand Canyon? Niagara Falls? Maybe that myth of digging long enough will get you to China?

I would say fire Billy King now, but why? His deal is about done anyway so why pay two GM’s when the bottom line is the most important thing anyway. But we need to be honest at this point. Billy King needs to really take responsibility for this mess that he has created, do the right thing and stay on the beaten (…and I mean it will be a beaten) path. I mean this by saying…

DO NOT MAKE ANY TRADES, MAN!!!!

But alas, it looks like Billy King is trying to throw something against the wall and hoping something will stick… again.

Stop me if I’m wrong, but this is the same guy that brought in Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, Gerald Wallace, Jason Terry, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce. Now to make all of this happen the Nets sent out a grand total of seven first-round picks, two first-round pick swaps and two additional players that they selected in the first round, being Derrick Favors and MarShon Brooks. Let’s see what has happened since then…

Deron Williams was bought out. Now he’s is in Dallas… starting.

Gerald Wallace, traded. Now he’s out of the league

Jason Terry traded for Marcus Thornton. Thornton is currently playing elsewhere.

Kevin Garnett was traded to Minnesota for Thaddeus Young.

Paul Pierce was not re-signed.

Now the bills for all of the wheeling and dealing are coming in. The Brooklyn Nets do not have a first-round pick thanks to the Boston blockbuster trade until at least 2020. Ugh!

Here’s where it gets good. I mean if you look at this team and the assets, what in the world would any self respecting NBA GM want from the Nets?

Let’s speculate how exploratory trade talk from Billy King to (Pick any team here) to start trade talks…

Secretary: Billy King on line one.

Pick a NBA GM: Tell him I ain’t here!!!!

Secretary: I did that the first six times. He keeps calling.

Pick a NBA GM: @#$%#$!!!! Send him through! Billy!!! How are you. How are the Nets?

Billy King: I’m looking to make a deal down the line. Just exploratory talks at this point.

Pick a NBA GM: How about Thaddeus Young? Oh wait a minute, four years at $50 million dollars. Plus he has struggled at times this season. Brook Lopez? Three years at $64 million dollars. Both are in their first years. Lopez has a history of injuries. Man, come to think about it, LOPEZ IS HURT NOW!!!

Billy King: How about Joe Johnson?

Dial tone.

This will happen 29 more times. To quote Sweet Daddy Williams of Good Times…

Billy King…”Boy you in trouble.”