The Nets are still feeling the ramifications of their 2013 trade disaster to acquire Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett from the Celtics. In exchange, along with a trio of salary filler players, the Nets sent Boston three first-round picks (2014, 2016, and 2018) and the rights to swap picks in 2017. The trade has gone down in infamy as one of the worst in NBA history, but the Nets are finally — five years later — on the precipice of being out from under that trade’s shadow.
Without those picks, and with the sadly predictably rapid decline of Garnett and Pierce, the Nets quickly became one of the league’s worst teams and lack much in the way of hope for the immediate future. That’s started to change with the additions of D’Angelo Russell and others this summer via trades, but the slow building process continues for a Brooklyn team that should have had the chance to draft Markelle Fultz this summer.
The NBA has taken notice of the bounty of picks the Celtics received, and, while all of that fell within the rules of first round picks being dealt having to be a year apart, the pick swap sandwiched between two first rounders being dealt has become a point of interest for the league’s competition committee.
According to ESPN’s Zach Lowe, the Nets have been so decimated by the Celtics trade that the league has considered changing the rules about pick swaps in years between when a team has already dealt their picks.
The league has since discussed banning pick swaps between drafts in which a team already owes its pick to other teams; the tweak has been on the competition committee agenda, but has not been debated yet at length, sources say.
The league is always looking to take steps to prevent teams from doing too much damage to themselves, because it’s bad for league business to have especially terrible teams for extended periods of time, even if it would be their fault to be that bad. Pick swaps became a loophole for teams that have already dealt away future picks to continue to strip away their own draft future in order to acquire veterans. A pick swap like what we saw between the Nets and Celtics can be nearly as detrimental to a team being able to build as completely trading their pick away.
Whether the league tries to plug that loophole or not will remain a question for the competition committee to discuss, but don’t be surprised if a “Billy King/Nets Rule” finds its way into existence soon.
