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| JASON TERRY, PAUL PIERCE, & KEVIN GARNETT |
Here comes KG, The Big Ticket who makes the Brooklyn Nets a big ticket, and here comes Paul Pierce, The Truth, with him (along with Jason Terry), and here come the $100 Million Nets, coming to try to steal the town from Melo and the Knicks, coming for everyone. And here comes a City Game rivalry that will make the old Cold War with the Russians feel like a tempest in a teapot.
When you have an insatiable, driven owner such as Mikhail Prokhorov, it isn’t enough to be King of Brooklyn — only King of all New York, at the very least, will do. You never rest, never stop pushing for that blueprint for greatness that just might make Barclays Center the garden of dreams, the biggest basketball dreams.
Garnett waived his no-trade clause last night to help his old pal, Jason Kidd, bring a buzz to Brooklyn that will be heard as far away as Clyde Frazier’s Wine and Dine and the offices of one James Dolan.
Everyone knows Garnett is on his last legs, but his tongue is forever young, so Melo better hide the woman — ooh, La La — and children the minute Garnett steps off the bus in Brooklyn.
He won’t be here for a terribly long time, of course; he is, after all, 37 years old, and Pierce is 35, proud old Celtics warriors no longer needed in the rebuilding project left behind by Doc Rivers, who bolted to the Clippers.
But here’s the thing: Making this blockbuster play makes the Nets every bit the Win Now team Anthony’s Knicks are. The trio of No. 1 picks sent to Boston means nothing to the win-now Nets owner. Neither do Kris Humphries, Gerald Wallace, Reggie Evans, Kris Joseph, and Keith Bogans, who were also sent to Boston in the proposed trade, which won’t become official until July 10.
It all means another daunting obstacle has been lobbed in Melo’s way as Amar’e Stoudemire becomes a year older and their championship window together becomes that much closer to closing shut.
It means general manager Billy King has changed the fiber and character of these Nets, who showed absolutely no heart, fire or toughness defending Barclays Center from the injury-ravaged Bulls in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference first-round series. The Nets will know how to win these games now. No one will be complaining the Nets lack emotion anymore.
The news Garnett and Pierce are joining forces with Deron Williams and Joe Johnson and Brook Lopez to play for J. Kidd won’t exactly force LeBron James to hide under his bed. What it does, though, is inject the Nets into any and all NBA conversations, and gives them the star power this city craves.
It also gives Garnett and Pierce, future Hall of Famers, the stage they deserve for their closing act.
Unless Stoudemire’s body can defy the odds and hold up, unless J.R Smith stays within striking distance of the 40-40 Club and proves Rihanna wrong, unless Tim Hardaway Jr. is at least half the player his old man used to be, you absolutely can make the case the Nets are now a better team on paper than the Knicks.
Garnett was going to join Rivers in Los Angeles, and play with Chris Paul. Outgoing NBA Commissioner David Stern, bless his heart for a Hall of Fame legacy of his own, vetoed that trade. But he won’t nix this one. It’s a trade that gives Garnett, who jumped to the NBA straight out of Farragut Academy in Chicago 18 years ago, one last chance to compete for his second NBA championship.
A championship tree grows in Brooklyn.
Nets versus Knicks for the hearts and minds of New York City.
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