With Kidd Now Gone, Is Carter Next?

Basketball

By JOHN HOLLINGER
February 20, 2008

So Jason Kidd has finally, officially been traded.

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Ned Dishman / Getty

The Nets completed an eight-player deal yesterday that sent Jason Kidd to Dallas. The team may now look to move Vince Carter.

What now?

For the Nets, their direction is clear: They'll focus on rebuilding around Devin Harris, Nenad Krstic, Marcus Williams, Sean Williams, Josh Boone, and Richard Jefferson; all but Jefferson are 24 or younger. Cap space beckons in the summer of 2009, with the club targeting the team's move to Brooklyn in 2010 as the time for their re-emergence as a force in the Eastern Conference.

That's the blueprint, but you'll notice one name missing from it: Vince Carter. With Kidd now a Maverick, there appears no reason for the rebuilding Nets to keep the 31-year-old Carter. He's due $48 million over the next three seasons, as well as a chunk of guaranteed money in 2011–12, but he will be well past his prime by the time New Jersey is ready to contend again.

The obvious solution, then, is to trade him. Carter doesn't have much value to the Nets as they're presently constructed, but he has a lot of value to teams looking for a wing scorer. Unfortunately, the Nets signed Carter to a four-year, $62 million deal last summer — back when they still had fantasies about contending.

It would be a lot easier to move Carter if he'd signed a shorter deal or, indeed, if he'd been allowed to walk. There are whispers that owner Bruce Ratner's fondness for Carter had as much to do with this decision as any input from the general manager, Rod Thorn, incidentally.

Regardless of whose idea it was, the time has come to undo it. The payback won't be as great as it was for Kidd, however. Although Carter is still an effective player, his age, contract, and reputation for malingering have dented the market for him.

In return for Carter, New Jersey's goal should be crystal clear: Contracts that expire by 2009. Yes, they'd like draft picks and young players in addition, but in contrast to the Kidd trade, this one should be mainly about contracts.

Carter is due his money through 2011, so a deal could get tricky. But exchanging him for players with contracts that expire by 2009 would have huge benefits for the Nets, because it would give them the cap space to shell out for a big-time free agent. With a combined $37 million owed to Carter, Harris, and Jefferson and the cap likely to be around $60 million total, it's improbable the Nets would have enough cap space otherwise. When it comes to Carter deals, the name most often rumored is Indiana's Jermaine O'Neal. But his contract doesn't expire until 2010, and, like Carter, there are concerns that he is injury-prone and has yielded diminishing returns of late.

Because of that, Thorn should look at other options. In theory, there are several, but in terms of making the numbers work, the three most promising ones are the Hornets, the Raptors, and the Knicks.

New Orleans is hungry for a wing scorer, and they could include Bobby Jackson, Julian Wright, Rasual Butler, and a first-round pick in a deal for Carter and Darrell Armstrong. Butler's deal doesn't expire until 2010, but it's a smaller contract — Jackson's larger one expires in 2009, and Wright is the type of promising young player the team should be accumulating. Also, the Nets would have to cut a player to make this deal work — happy trails, Jamaal Magloire.

Then, dare I say it, there's Toronto. While most Raptors fans would welcome Carter's return like it was a recurrence of chlamydia, the numbers and needs match. Toronto needs a dynamic wing scorer like Carter, and the Raptors can dump the contracts of Rasho Nesterovic, Juan Dixon, and Joey Graham while throwing in a first-rounder for their troubles.

Finally, no examination of a salary dump is complete without discussing the Knicks. New York has expressed interest in Carter and could make a fairly appealing package of David Lee, Malik Rose, and Fred Jones — Jones's deal expires this year, Rose's next year, and Lee is a definite keeper. But the Nets may be reluctant to provide star power to their cross-river rivals.

Of course, the other part of this equation is whether Thorn is looking for a Kidd-like bounty, in which case he's bound to be disappointed. While Carter has arguably been the better player over the past three seasons, his reputation around the league isn't nearly as exalted.

The upshot is that it's no guarantee that Carter will have a new home by tomorrow's deadline. Thorn may feel that better offers will come in the summer, especially if Carter can put together a strong finish to the season and show his doubters that there's still some All-Star play left in the tank. But either way, this much is clear: With Kidd gone, trading Carter is the only logical next step. Whether it's this week or this summer, his days in the Swamp are numbered.

* * *

Two sidenotes on the Kidd trade: First, the Nets didn't get back a second-rounder from Dallas, as originally agreed, because the two sides were able to include Antoine Wright in the main deal and fit it all under the salary cap.

The other sidenote will be the return of Keith Van Horn tonight as the Nets host the Bulls. A Net for the first five years of his career who averaged 21.8 points a game in 1998–99, Van Horn last played for Dallas in its 2006 NBA Finals defeat against Miami. He's coming out of semi-retirement at age 32.

jhollinger@nysun.com

With Kidd Now Gone, Is Carter Next?

Basketball

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