Nets Making a Big Mistake With Acquisition of Pierce and Garnett

The last time we saw Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Jason Terry they were throwing bricks in a listless performance against the Knicks in the first round of this NBA playoffs this past Spring.

Yet, that performance doesn't seem to bother the Nets ownership group, and General Manger Billy King, who swung a deal with the Boston Celtics to acquire the three elder stars for Gerald Wallace, Kris Humphries, Reggie Evans, Keith Bogans, Kris Joseph, AND the Nets first round draft picks in 2014, '16, and '18.

While some might scuff at Wallace and Humphries, as well as the unknown in three draft picks, the Nets gave up a lot for three guys who have very little left to offer in their NBA career.

Sure Pierce and Garnett are first ballot Hall of Famers, but the point is the Nets did themselves, their new head coach Jason Kidd, a huge disservice bringing in two aging stars to a ball club that was initially trying to build a team that would compete year in and year out.

Instead Brooklyn is making the same mistake we have seen plenty of New York teams make in the past, and that is go for the brass ring in the middle of the off-season without even proving it on the field or court.

On paper a lineup of Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, Brook Lopez, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce screams big things, but lets be honest, we will likely never see this line-up on the court at the same time ever during the course of the 2013-14 season.

For starters, Garnett and Lopez each play the same position, center. Garnett is typically banged up over the course of a long season, and over the last few years, former Celtics coach Doc Rivers had limited Garnett's minutes to keep him fresh for the end of the season.

At age 37, there is no telling how much Garnett has left; maybe this year and that is that.

As for Pierce, he has seen his shooting percentage drop precipitously over the last three years. In 2010 he was still shooting 49.7 percent from the floor, just this season he was hitting a measly 43 percent, and was downright awful against the Knicks in the playoffs.

Pierce is the ultimate ball hog too, and Nets fans better get used to seeing Pierce take shots away from Johnson, Lopez and whomever is left on the Nets bench, and don't expect Pierce to nail them with the consisetncy that he did when he was a true All Star player.

The fact is All Star teams like this never work. Forget the Miami Heat, whom the Nets are trying to emulate with a move like this.

That team while it has three stars in their prime, LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosch, the reason the Heat have been so successful is because of the contributions from roll players like Mario Chalmers, Shane Battier, and Mike Miller.

In short to become an NBA champion you need a balance. The Nets don't have that balance anymore, they traded most of it away in this deal.

What makes this marriage so odd, is the fact that Nets have put this team together with a rookie head coach in place in Jason Kidd. Kidd has never coached a game in his life, and now he is begin asked to manage some of the top personalities in the sport during the ebb and flow of a long 82-game season.

There is no telling how Kidd will do when this team struggles; there is also no telling how he will "win" the locker room over when things are going tough, and trust me with this group they will.

It's one thing to ask a rookie coach to coach the team the Nets had previous to this trade, a team with a couple of stars and a lot of home grown roll players, now he has to coach an Eastern Conference All Star Team Circa 2008, and that is not even counting himself, who used to be a star point guard.

The fact is the Nets have gambled and it ultimately could cost Billy King his job, and Kidd his as well. They have pushed all the chips to the front of the table when there really wasn't any need to do so. The Nets were the number 4 seed in the Eastern Conference this past year, and look ahead to 2013-14, the Nets would have competed for a top seed again regardless.

All that stands between any challenger in the East and the NBA title is the Miami Heat, and they are now on the downside of their run.

The Bulls are a question mark with and without Derrick Rose; the Knicks are the ultimate Jekyll and Hyde. Only the Pacers seem like a formidable threat to the Heat, and that is just based off of this year's Eastern Conference Finals.

So in short, the Nets could have competed without adding Pierce and Garnett. Now, they BETTER compete, or else.

By trading away first round picks in 2014, '16, and '18 drafts that figure to be much better than this year's draft, the Nets are mortgaging their future on immediate results that may never come. When we look back at this trade, we might be thinking to ourselves how the Celtics got one up on the Nets, since they traded two aging stars for picks that they turned into gold down the road -- picks that could have been playing for the Nets if they hadn't bitten the Devil's apple.

So lets' say the Nets go through 2013-14 with this aging group, and again fall short in the first round of the playoffs, or don't even make it to the playoffs, would it have been worth it? Would all the PR drummed up by the Nets brass look brilliant then?

The Nets don't have to look far to see how thinking P.R./Glitz & Glamor and Season tickets first can blow up in your face in a New York minute.

The Mets tried this back in 2002 adding Roberto Alomar, Mo Vaughn and Jeremy Burnitz. How many World Series did they win?

The Jets have become the ultimate circus under Woody Johnson and Rex Ryan. How many Super Bowls have the Jets won since Rex Ryan arrived on the scene?

The Yankees have only one World Series to show for legitimizing Alex Rodriguez's bloated and uncomfortable 10-year stay in New York. And all the playoff failures the Yankees have had the last decade are more memorable than their one shining moment in 2009.

All this trade does is prove the point that owner Mikhail Prokorov and Jay-Z care more about selling tickets, merchandise, and the Nets brand rather than winning. They proved that when they fired Avery Johnson; later they disposed of a winner in P.J. Carlesmo, and hired the untested Kidd rather than a sure bet in Brian Shaw.

It's all about public sex appeal for the Nets. The hard on the Nets get by their own publicity stunts is as great as the idiotic billboard they posted in downtown Manhattan a couple years ago when they termed the Prokorov/Jay-Z regime as the "Blueprint for Greatness." So far that success hasn't happened yet.

The names Garnett and Pierce sound better than Wallace and Humphries, but in the end if it doesn't result in more victories, then the Nets are just another laughing stock.