Utah Jazz GM Kevin O’Connor recently chatted with Nets beat writer Fred Kerber and told him that he thought he got fair value for his all-star point guard Deron Williams:
“When we looked at what we needed, we thought we had a pretty good basketball team and adding somebody who played in an All-Star Game at point guard at 28 with a couple of years left on a contract, we thought that was a real positive,” O’Connor said. “Getting Derrick (Favors), the third pick in the draft, and the Nets’ pick this year, it answered all of the things we needed to get. From the point of view we got a good young draft pick, then another one this year and then Golden State’s draft pick (2012) after that. And then getting Devin, (Harris) who we feel is a top tier point guard. It answered what we needed.”
People have said if Deron splits town in 2012 then the Nets have given up too much, so the fact that that risk remains means, this was probably a pretty even swap at the end of the day. Just because Denver was able to get the Knicks to pay through the nose for Anthony, doesn’t mean that every team has to gut their roster of every tradeable asset they own in deals like this.
