Will Billy King Be Rewarded For Offseason Events?

Brooklyn Nets general manager Billy King has done something this offseason that no one thought he could and that is upgrade a stagnant roster that was supposedly set for the next four years.

King was able to pull off one of the best trades in years and bring in two Hall of Famers in Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce and a do-it-all player in Andrei Kirilenko to help bolster the Nets championship chances for the next few years.

Could he be the Executive of the Year before the season even begins.  NBA.com has some thoughts on this idea.

[quote_simple]Fran Blinebury

Billy King, Nets – It’s like walking into a casino with a sack full of money, walking straight to the roulette table and plopping it all down on red. Or black. Either way, it’s a 50-50 gamble and you live with the results.

King certainly has the cushion and the endorsement of Russian billionaire owner Mikhail Prokorhov and the understanding that paying the luxury tax bill of nearly $100 million is no problem. Still, it takes considerable nerve for King to bet it all on the hope that a 37-year-old Kevin Garnett, 35-year-old Paul Pierce, 35-year-old Jason Terry and a rookie head coach in Jason Kidd can take down the two-time defending champs from Miami along with the rest of what has become a strengthened Eastern Conference lineup.

Deron Williams and Joe Johnson were enough to make Brooklyn a postseason sports destination for the first time since the Dodgers left town, but now it’s the old Celtics who’ll be expected to show them how to win a series or more. To get Andrei Kirilenko to walk away from a guaranteed $10 million to sign a cut-rate deal was probably the second-best move of the entire NBA offseason, trailing only Dwight Howard’s move to Houston. Kirilenko adds a tough defender and a slashing finisher to a lineup that hopes to have Brook Lopez improving on his first ever All-Star season.

If he’s accomplished one big thing already, King has jumped the Nets over the Knicks as the headlining team in New York, which is significant.[/quote_simple]