If a 38-win team wants to keep the band together at an exorbitant cost, the rest of the NBA is willing to sit back and let them.
The Brooklyn Nets have long been considered the favorites to retain their two key unrestricted free agents in Brook Lopez and Thad Young, and little in the lead-up to the opening of free agency on Wednesday has changed that. "Rival teams ... are increasingly convinced that they have no shot at luring either one away," according to a report from Marc Stein of ESPN.
It was reported over the weekend that Lopez was on course to sign a three-year deal worth $60 million plus to stay in Brooklyn, while Young is expected to be retained with a four-year, $48-million pact.
Those deals together would once again give the Nets one of the league's highest payrolls. Their growing belief they can find a trade partner for Joe Johnson and his $24.9-million salary helps some, but the Nets are going to be fairly thin and low on flexibility even if Johnson is jettisoned.
It's hardly a prudent strategy to continue forward with a flawed and expensive core, but the alternate strategies are nil. The Nets don't have a first-round pick in 2016 or 2018, the Boston Celtics can swap picks with them in 2017, and they're largely devoid of talented young players to build around. Maintaining payroll flexibility would be great, but with a rising cap and little recourse to begin rebuilding properly, remaining a fringe playoff contender may be the most palatable option for Brooklyn.
And it's not as if Lopez and Young are bad players. The 27-year-old Lopez averaged 17.2 points, 7.4 rebounds, and 1.8 blocks while shooting 51.3 percent from the floor, providing rim protection and interior scoring that's growing increasingly scarce league-wide. Young, meanwhile, can capably man either forward position, playing a solid if unspectacular two-way game. He averaged 14.1 points, 5.4 rebounds, 2.3 assists, and 1.6 steals last season while canning 33 percent of his 3-point attempts.
Keeping two quality players isn't going to be a giant step forward for the Nets, but doing what they can to stay moderately competitive may be the team's only option right now.
