The Nets struck out on their third straight restricted free-agent target when Houston matched their offer sheet to Donatas Motiejunas. So the question now is: What’s next?
Brooklyn can’t sell a contending team to unrestricted free agents or rely on lottery picks to get elite rookies. But they have cash. Lots of it.
They’re second in the NBA in cap space, with their $18.6 million just a whisker behind Denver’s. They’re projected to trail only Philadelphia in space this summer.
Another rise in the salary cap from $94 million to an expected $102 million next summer means several contenders will have room to add players, but the nine teams with space are fewer than there were in July, when seemingly everybody was flush with cash. There should be even fewer next summer.
“The teams with potential cap space shrink and shrink and shrink, so it’s not like last year when there were a couple dozen teams that could offer big salaries. It’s shrinking as it goes,” general manager Sean Marks said. “There’s no secret out there now. Every team knows we’ve got plenty of cash to spend and maneuver around. We’ll just be strategic in how we do it.”
Maneuvering could mean trading. Marks might not have to wait until the summer, but could make a deal when teams start trading on Dec. 15. That’s when free agents signed this summer can be moved, when 175 newly available players could change the whole landscape.
“We are going to be aggressive and creative in how we acquire assets, obviously with the hand we’ve been dealt,” Marks said.
That hand is a lousy one, with the Celtics holding the right to swap first-round picks in 2017, and the Nets having no first-rounder at all in 2018. They don’t even control their own second-rounder until 2021. Yes, it’s that bad.
The elite free agents wouldn’t give the Nets the time of day last summer, Kevin Durant refusing to even meet with them, something they found sobering. But their reputation for player development — partly due to coach Kenny Atkinson, and partly due to D-League successes like Sean Kilpatrick — made rising, young restricted free agents another likely target next summer.
“It’s definitely a tool that we have in our toolbox here,’’ Marks said. “The fact that we have cap space, and the cards have fallen the way they have, we’ll obviously continue to try and be as aggressive and creative as we can in building this team; and if that means going through restricted free agency, that’ll be the path we go through.”
Jeremy Lin (hamstring) went through shooting drills, but didn’t practice fully and is out Wednesday vs. Denver. Yogi Ferrell (ankle) is questionable.
Motiejunas refused to report to Houston. The Rockets can make him a restricted free agent again, but he can’t sign with the Nets for one year. Houston also can’t trade him to Brooklyn for 12 months, so that ship has sailed for the Nets.