NBA News 2012: Nets reach deal to acquire Joe Johnson from Hawks

English: Devin Harris playing with the New Jersey Nets (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Brooklyn Nets have reached an agreement in principle to acquire Atlanta Hawks guard Joe Johnson, league sources told Yahoo! Sports.

Joe Johnson has four years and about $90 million remaining on his contract. (Getty Images)

The trade sends guards Anthony Morrow, Jordan Farmar and DeShawn Stevenson and forwards Jordan Williams and Johan Petro to the Hawks, along with a lottery-protected 2013 first-round pick the Nets acquired from the Houston Rockets. Stevenson is a free agent, so he will go to the Hawks in a sign-and-trade deal.

Johnson, 31, has four years and nearly $90 million dollars left on his contract. Shedding his contract gives Atlanta immense cap relief and flexibility moving forward. The Hawks created more flexibility by also reaching agreement on a trade to send Marvin Williams to the Utah Jazz for Devin Harris, league sources confirmed to Y! Sports' Marc Spears. Harris has one year and $8.5 million remaining on his contract. Williams has two years and $15.8 million left on his deal.

The deal for Johnson eliminates the Nets from pursuing a deal with Orlando for All-Star center Dwight Howard in the short-term, but could open the possibility of Atlanta making a bid to bring Howard back to his boyhood home. The Hawks could have $25 million in salary-cap space next summer. They also have attractive young talent, including center Al Horford and guard Jeff Teague, to offer Orlando.

Brooklyn officials and Deron Williams began a 5 p.m. ET meeting for what the Nets hope would be a final walk-through with the All-Star point guard on the organization's plans to surround him with talent and become an Eastern Conference contender.The Magic showed no inclination to negotiate a Howard trade with the Nets, and sources say Williams gave his blessing for general manager Billy King to build a supporting cast without Howard.

The Nets were unsure if Williams would commit to their five-year, $100 million extension on Monday, expecting him to take a little more time to decide between them and the Dallas Mavericks. Nevertheless, the organization has become increasingly confident Williams will decide to stay.

What won't be much a part of the Nets' presentation to Williams: How they'll continue to try and pry All-Star center Dwight Howard out of Orlando. The deal for Johnson – along with a $40 million extension for Gerald Wallace and and an eventual $50 milllion-plus deal for center Brook Lopez – almost assure the Nets will be out of the Howard derby.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nba--nets-near-deal-to-acquire-joe-johnson-from-hawks.html;_ylt=AjEQGSDThraGVGCnFNP_soY5nYcB

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NBA News 2012: Nets acquire Joe Johnson with trade with Atlanta

English: Atlanta Hawks vs Washington Wizards, 2008-09 Regular Season. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Brooklyn Nets have acquired forward Joe Johnson in a trade with the Atlanta Hawks in exchange for five players and a draft pick, multiple media outlets reported Monday.

The Hawks get Jordan Farmar, Anthony Morrow, Jordan Williams and Johan Petro. They also will get DeShawn Stevenson in a sign-and-trade arrangement and will get the Nets’ 2013 lottery-protected pick.

The pick is lottery-protected until 2017, at which point it becomes a second-round pick.

Johnson, 31, is a six-time all-star, and he averaged 18.8 points and 3.7 rebounds this past season.

Originally, the deal was to be contingent on Deron Williams agreeing to re-sign with the Nets, according to ESPN.com, but the Nets have since removed that stipulation.

Adding Johnson and the $89 million and four years remaining on his contract will make it difficult for the Nets to add Orlando center Dwight Howard, who reportedly has said he wanted to be traded to Brooklyn.

The Nets will have to pay Deron Williams a lot, and they signed Gerald Wallace to a four-year, $40 million deal recently.

The Hawks rid themselves of a lot of salary obligation by sending Johnson away in exchange for low-priced players.

Morrow was the highest scoring of the players acquired, and he averaged 12.0 points for the Nets this past season. Farmar averaged 10.4.

http://www.hoopsworld.com/nets-acquire-joe-johnson-with-trade-with-atlanta

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NBA News 2012: An Even More Dominant LeBron

MIAMI, FL - MAY 31: LeBron James #6 of the Miami Heat is double-teammed by Jason Kidd #2 and DeShawn Stevenson #92 of the Dallas Mavericks in the first quarter in Game One of the 2011 NBA Finals at American Airlines Arena on May 31, 2011 in Miami, Florida. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)In a match-up of two equally skilled players, individual defense is primarily a function of being longer, stronger and faster than your opponent. There are a small handful of All-NBA caliber players with a skill-set comparable to LeBron; there isn’t a player in the world who can compare with him athletically.

The Bulls, with three of the best interior defenders in the NBA in Joakim Noah, Taj Gibson and Omer Asik and excellent perimeter athletes in Derrick Rose and Ronnie Brewer, became an elite team due to a defense unrivaled in terms of length and intensity. In the first quarter Sunday, LeBron made them look like the Toronto Raptors.

To stem the bleeding, Tom Thibodeau resorted to a 2-3 zone, abandoning his team’s calling card in an effort to keep LeBron out of the paint. Erik Spoelstra had an easy counter: shifting LeBron to the high post, where his height and court vision allowed him to pick apart the defense and find Joel Anthony at the rim.

However, LeBron’s athleticism and playmaking ability are known commodities.

What should concern the rest of the NBA was the post-game he displayed. His inability to play with his back to the basket has long been his most glaring weakness: Dallas exploited it in The Finals last season, putting increasingly smaller defenders, from the 6’7 Shawn Marion to the 6’5 DeShawn Stevenson and the 6’4 Jason Kidd, on him as the series progressed.

Against Chicago in the second half, he took turns abusing Hamilton and Brewer, facing them up and blowing by them from the elbow, baseline and the low-post. But with 5:00 minutes left in the fourth quarter, the Bulls had crawled back in the game, trailing Miami by only two points.

LeBron received the ball with a 26-year-old 6’7 225 wing with a 6’11 wingspan and a 40’ vertical defending him, and as he began posting up, no help came. So he patiently dribbled the ball five times, bull-dozing Brewer back feet at a time for an easy lay-up at the front of the rim.

To understand how well Chicago will have to play to defeat the Heat, compare the super-human acrobatics the 6’3 Rose uses to score in the lane against Miami with LeBron’s casual demolition of Brewer. The return of the 6’8 220 Luol Deng, the second rated small forward in the high school class of 2003, will help, but he’s not nearly enough.

While LeBron’s lack of a championship has made his game and character media punching bags, a perimeter player has never bested him in the playoffs. The common theme has been a dominant 6’11+ big man capable of controlling the paint defensively --  Tim Duncan in 2007, Kevin Garnett in 2008 and 2010, Dwight Howard in 2009 and Tyson Chandler in 2011.

As great as Rose is, he’s operating on the same plane of the game as LeBron. When Miami needed a stop in the 2011 Eastern Conference Finals, they stuck a 6’9 275 player fast enough to keep Rose in front of him without giving him space for his jumper, and that was that.

Dallas, in contrast, had a 7’0 low post scorer (Dirk) with a release point LeBron could not challenge and a 7’0 center (Chandler) capable of meeting him at the rim. The Mavericks, who treated Mike Bibby like a traffic cone all series long, were perfectly constructed to exploit Miami’s only two weaknesses, yet they barely won one of the tightest Finals in NBA history.

A year later, the Heat are much improved. They have the same starters, but instead of running out players like Bibby, James Jones, Erick Dampier, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Jamaal Magloire, Juwon Howard and Carlos Arroyo in the regular season, the first four players off their bench are a healthy Udonis Haslem and Mike Miller, free agent acquisition Shane Battier and rookie Norris Cole. Cole, an athletic 6’2 175 guard, gives them someone to match up with players like JJ Barea, whose ability to blow by Miami’s point guards in the Finals made him an unlikely folk hero and an even unlikelier $20 million from Minnesota in the offseason.

http://basketball.realgm.com/article/218693

NBA News 2011: LeBron teeters on ultimate Finals failure

Image by Keith Allison via Flickr
Everything promises to be sheer torture now, the worst basketball nightmare of LeBron James unfolding one mocking, ridiculing jeer stacked upon another until the world comes crashing down Sunday night. Biggest game of my life, James proclaimed, and the final minutes of Game 5, the final score, still belonged to someone else. Beyond failure, this felt so much like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Biggest game of his life, James proclaimed, and his good was unacceptable again. Greatness is demanded for a global icon. Greatness is the burden. Back to the brink for LeBron James, back to the dizzying, dumbfounding edge of his chaotic, careening planet.

All hell crashed down upon James and the Miami Heat in a confounding 112-103 loss to the Dallas Mavericks, an avalanche of Mavericks 3-pointers conspiring with one more pedestrian performance from James in the fourth quarter. From Dirk Nowitzki to Jason Terry, the Mavericks humiliated him in the clutch and moved within a victory of an NBA championship. Nothing out of James in the fourth quarter, nothing to honor and validate a talent that ought to be controlling these Finals.

These Dallas Mavericks go to great lengths to mess with him, hurling insults and insinuations with regularity that they never would’ve dared with different superstars. Why? Because they believe it messes with his mind. They believe the words will fester within him, keep him thinking when he ought to be reacting. Terry says James can’t guard him, and so far he’s been right. DeShawn Stevenson essentially called him a quitter in Game 4. Shawn Marion appeared to call him much worse on the floor, too.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=Am7.8NmGcAOVwREs8J5GceW8vLYF?slug=aw-wojnarowski_lebron_james_nba_finals_game5_061011

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NBA News 2011: Mavs' guard Stevenson: LeBron 'checked out' of Game

Image by Keith Allison via Flickr
Mavericks guard DeShawn Stevenson is directing some sharp words toward Miami's LeBron James on the eve of Game 5 in the NBA finals.

Stevenson says the Heat forward "checked out" in the final minutes of Game 4 on Tuesday night, when James was held to eight points - the lowest he managed in 90 career playoff games.

Stevenson isn't worried about the perception of his comments, either.

After Dallas practiced Wednesday, Stevenson was saying that the Heat are still getting to know each other, that James wasn't himself in Game 4 and that the two-time MVP is "talented enough that he can use anything in the paper to kind of boost his ego."

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/basketball/nba/06/08/stevenson.lebron.ap/index.html?sct=nba_t2_a13

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