Nets GM says sky’s the limit next summer
Sean Marks was never going to go all-in like Magic Johnson, vowing to sign stars by next summer or he’d quit. But the Nets’ reserved general manager sounded unusually bullish on 2019.
Reports out of Toronto about Kawhi Leonard calling other stars to gauge their willingness to join him in free agency — and including Brooklyn on that list — give the Nets fans something to salivate over.
“It’s being able to stay flexible, and that can happen in a year from now where we’ll have more tools,” Marks said. “At the season-ending press conference we did, there’s a different set of circumstances, so things have changed a little bit in the last three months. We have a year to prepare for summer of 2019.”
Considering where the Nets came from in the scorched-earth aftermath of the trade with the Celtics in 2014, they have to be almost giddy dreaming about next summer. They’ll not only have two first-round draft picks but a trove of cap space.
Granted, to land two max players they would have to deal Allen Crabbe, or let D’Angelo Russell and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson go, but they will have the flexibility to go big-game hunting for stars such as Leonard, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Jimmy Butler or Klay Thompson.
“The sky’s the limit to the expectations a year from now,” Marks said.
The sky might be the limit, but aiming for Leonard would be a moon shot.
Logic would dictate the higher level might be teaming up with LeBron James in L.A., but Leonard has developed a familiarity with and fondness for New York.
Leonard picked Dr. Jonathan Glashow, an orthopedic specialist at Mount Sinai Medical Center, for his surgery. Then he did his rehab at the NBA Players Association. And, of course, his uncle/adviser Dennis Robertson is based in New Jersey.
Marks developed a good relationship with Robertson during his time in San Antonio, and Brooklyn has no less than 10 former Spurs employees, according to NetsDaily. They’d be a long shot to land Leonard, but if he doesn’t stay in Toronto or land in L.A., they’d provide a comfortable situation for him.
Whether it’s Leonard — or Irving and Butler, who reportedly want to team up in the East — the Nets have given themselves the ability to at least dream.
“It beats the alternative,” Marks said with a rare Cheshire Cat grin.