Nets blow chance to take New York

— -- Brooklyn Nets general manager Billy King has plenty on his hands: managing a team beset by 12 losses in its past 16 games, plus trade talks, plus persistent reports that owner Mikhail Prokhorov has the club up for sale.

So it's no surprise that King chuckled just a little when asked if he can imagine himself -- or any other NBA GM, for that matter -- having the guts to publicly declare, "My experiment has fallen flat on its face," as New York Knicks president Phil Jackson said in the New York Times earlier this week.

It was Jackson's second mea culpa this season.

"He's got 11 rings -- he can say a lot of things," King said, laughing a little again.

The 10-39 Knicks and 20-28 Nets play each other again at Barclays Center on Friday. But unlike seasons past, there is no talk about city bragging rights. The Nets are at a crossroads, and the Knicks' troubles will only feel worse when Steve Kerr, who refused Jackson's offer to coach the Knicks, arrives at Madison Square Garden on Saturday with his 39-8 Golden State Warriors, who lead the rugged Western Conference. The weekend after that, the Knicks and Nets will co-host the All-Star Game festivities, but Carmelo Anthony is the only player from either team in the game.

Jay Z's overhyped involvement ended long ago, and Prokhorov has watched only two games in person since the start of the season. The Russian billionaire's past nonchalance about the Nets' enormous luxury-tax bills seems to be wearing out, too. His public refusal to even confirm a stake in the team is for sale doesn't seem as persuasive as other reports detailing the financial squeeze even Prokhorov might be facing due to changes in his native Russia and the world financial markets beyond.

And so, though King concedes it's "unfortunate" that details about his trade talks have somehow gotten out -- he reportedly backed out of several three-team deals that might've sent Brook Lopez or Joe Johnson to the likes of Oklahoma City or Charlotte -- the GM insists the Nets will not be holding a "fire sale" before the NBA's non-waiver trade deadline Feb. 19.

"What I have tried to do is be in constant communication, and I talk to our players all the time," King said. "Sometimes it's to say, 'Don't believe anything -- you're not going anywhere.' At other times it's been to say, 'Yeah. We've had [trade] conversations to see if anything makes sense.'"

King was adamant that the reports that first-year coach Lionel Hollins' job is in jeopardy are absolutely false.

"I don't know where that story came from about Lionel, but it's not true," King said.

That's sensible, if accurate. Because Hollins should be safe. The Nets' core trio of Deron Williams, Johnson and Lopez has now had four coaches in the past three years -- Avery Johnson, P.J. Carlesimo, Jason Kidd and now Hollins --- and at some point, the coach can't be the problem, right?

It's about time the focus shifted to finally breaking up the Nets' Big Three.

The calculus King used when he hired Hollins was similar to when he hired Kidd, and it still holds up: The Nets have long been seen as a soft, under-performing team that lacks leadership and intensity. Their embarrassing 2013 playoff series loss to the shorthanded Chicago Bulls was so rankling, King and Prokhorov went for the boom-or-bust moves of getting Celtics vets Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett in here, along with Kidd, for an instant infusion of toughness and heart.

But now look: Kidd bolted after one year. Pierce was one-and-done here, and the 38-year-old Garnett is irritably deflecting buyout talk because of his diminished game.

Now King's trade-deadline dilemma is a tough one: How long do you wait before cutting bait? Especially given that the franchise has been stripped of first-round draft picks and might look more attractive to prospective buyers if the massive payroll was back under the NBA luxury tax?

More questions: Can Hollins finally cajole the best out of this team the way he did in Memphis, after some initial headbutting there, too? Or should King have already seen enough to know the mix isn't right?

Williams has been hampered by injuries, and he perennially hasn't been the same player here whom he was in Utah. Johnson gets a lot of respect in the locker room, but he's a max-salaried player who doesn't make the max impact of bigger stars, and even his crunch-time magic has faded lately. And Lopez? Hollins, who is unapologetic about the way he goads all his players, said this and more in a December story about his famous mouth: "If you go back, Brook has averaged 20 points a game. Now, you could be happy with that. But at 7-foot, we don't get rebounds, we don't get shot blocks, we don't get charges. That is as important to winning than just 20 points."

Lopez, who has been on a January uptick, now says he and Hollins are starting to "understand" each other better.

King agreed that it has been "an adjustment process" for the entire team, but the demanding side of Hollins is one of the things King likes most about him.

The GM said it takes him back to when he was a young assistant coach working for Hall of Famer Larry Brown, one of the all-time great naggers, a man who constantly exhorts players to play "the right way." King, like everyone else, is also a great admirer of Gregg Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs' philosophy that the sum of the team will always be more formidable than its parts, even if you do have stars. The trick is getting the stars to buy into that.

Hollins, who played under Hall of Famers Jack Ramsay, Billy Cunningham and Chuck Daly, harps on the same themes. And since Williams' return this week from an 11-game absence due to a rib cartilage fracture, the Nets have pulled off impressive wins over the Los Angeles Clippers at home and the Atlantic Division-leading Toronto Raptors on the road after losing 12 of 14. So is the message sinking in?

After the win in Toronto, an encouraged Hollins said: "As I just told the coaches, it's very humbling to see your team start to get it. You fight them, you fight them, you're yelling, you're coaxing them, you're hugging them. You're doing all kinds of stuff and then all of a sudden, a light comes on and they start playing for each other and believing in each other and it's showed in the way we've played for the last couple of games."

Even Lopez said, "We have a different energy about us."

King insisted he won't make a trade just to make a change. He may wait right up to the Feb. 19 deadline to decide. And it makes sense.

King has tough choices to make. The oft-injured Lopez has a $16.7 million option for next season that he's expected to use. Right now, the Nets have no salary-cap room nor their own first-round pick. So how do they improve?

"I think this is a playoff team," King insisted. "And more than once I've said, 'Thank God we play in the East.'"

But since when was that good enough for Prokhorov? Or fuel for a crosstown rivalry?

The Russian tycoon blew into town boasting about winning a championship by 2015. Now he hasn't been seen in Brooklyn in months. And over in Manhattan, the Knicks' 69-year-old Jackson suggested to the Times that he might not be around for the end of his five-year contract, though he thinks a Knicks turnaround could take that long.

So when the Nets and Knicks meet Friday, it won't be for bragging rights. There's little to brag about on either side of the East River.

The Knicks have already blown up their team. Now the Nets must decide if their roster is next.