King talking Nets crown

BILLY KING’S JOB is finished for now. He can kick off his shoes, perhaps contemplate his own contract extension and watch a Nets team he believes is capable of winning a championship.

That’s right, “championship” is being uttered freely in the Nets practice facility.

“Can we win a championship? Yes,” the Nets general manager said Tuesday, echoing the confidence of Brook Lopez and Joe Johnson. “But it’s going to take luck in an NBA season to do that. You need to be healthy for the most part. You have to get some breaks. The ball has to bounce your way sometimes.”

For the first time since he was hired by Mikhail Prokhorov in 2010, King isn’t the story of the preseason, and his trade negotiations aren’t overshadowing what is occurring on the court.

Finally, Nets training camp — which starts next week — is about basketball, not about Carmelo Anthony and Dwight Howard.

Still, despite his cautioned title talk, King didn’t make any grand predictions about his veteran squad as it moves to Brooklyn, or feed the reporters a sound bite to fuel a Nets-Knicks rivalry. The Nets, he said, are still just a playoff team “on paper,” and the Knicks are an afterthought to Prokhorov’s goal of winning the Larry O’Brien Trophy by 2015.

“We play the Knicks four times and if we just win those four games and lose the rest of the games, it’s going to be a bad season for us,” King said. “So our focus is not on beating the Knicks or being better than the Knicks. I know the fans talk about it and you guys write about it, but I don’t consume myself with the Knicks and anything they do.”

Even if the Nets were inclined to make a major move, King is handcuffed. As constructed, the team is capped out until 2014. The only notable expiring contracts belong to King and coach Avery Johnson. Prokhorov hinted last week that both would receive contract extensions.

“I don’t think the pressure just falls just on Avery,” King said. “It falls on me too because I put the team together.”