Free Ballin’

NJ and Milwaukee mixin’ it up! This is a fun deal, because there are significant talent and financial elements involved, and both teams are radically changed. That’s fun, no?

NJ Gets: a huge roundhouse to the chin in losing Richard Jefferson; huge cap-relief for the all-important free-agent class of 2010; two interesting players with significant upside and downside potential.

Milwaukee Gets: a versatile all-star in his prime

I call this a win-win—seriously. I don’t know if I’d say that if I were a Nets fan. You can never really put yourself in the shoes of fans of teams that you don’t follow, and I can see this one being tough to take for Nets fans. NJ loses a lot of talent here. Jefferson has developed into a very good second-option scorer and defender, and since he’s made considerable strides in his shooting and ball-handling, he has virtually no weaknesses. The only thing keeping him from being a superstar is that he doesn’t quite have the ability to create his own scoring opportunities on that level. Still, he’s a bona fide allstar, and fits perfectly into the Bucks lineup. Essentially, Jefferson will provide the athletic defending scoring swingman the Bucks thought they had acquired a few years ago by signing Bobby Simmons.

However Nets fans, this one might work, seriously. Jefferson actually has one acute flaw: he’s not quite good enough to play up to his enormous contract. There are always a few of those guys around the league, really good players who are overpaid just enough to be part of the problem and not the solution—unless your team is playing for a championship that year. The Nets are not. As I’ve previously written, NBA teams should be moving in one of two directions at all times: building towards contention or rebuilding. The Nets had been stagnant for a few years, but this season they’ve swiftly and efficiently shifted into rebuilding mode, and as good as Jefferson is, his contract was in the way.

That’s the tough part for Nets fans to swallow; but aside from financial relief in 2010 (free agents LeBron or Wade in Brooklyn? How cool would that be?) the Nets also get back two very interesting players in Bobby Simmons and Yi Van Winkle. (Grandpa Yi? Yi Ole’ Man River?) I can’t say much about Simmons. I haven’t seen a lot of him—I tend to be busy when the Clippers or Bucks play—but in his Clippers days, he was reputed to be a solid defending wing, and the stats say he has (or had) a sweet touch from three-point range. The Bucks paid him a salary that indicates they expected a star-turn he never made. He was (merely) solid his first year, but then injured his foot and was out the entire ’06-’07 season. This season he only played 21 minutes a game in Milwaukee’s SF logjam and lost his three-point shot. His future? I don’t know. He just turned 28, and if he regains his shot he might be a solid, if overpaid, player for the Nets for the next two seasons.

As for Yi… I have nothing to add to the plethora of Agegate (Old-Mangate?) coverage. It sounds like he might become a nice player; he might not. Scouting reports from last year’s draft suggested he had huge potential. Or he may be 40 years old. Who knows? But he’s cheap, and the Nets will have a few years to develop him and see if he’ll be part of their future. So yeah, believe it or not, I like this for the Nets too.

¡Qué cojones! A win-win for everyone.