EAST RUTHERFORD – The Nets were busier the last two Februarys than this year, but they also were talking about moving Jason Kidd and Vince Carter.

Your phone will ring for those two players. They moved Kidd the week or so before the deadline in 2008. But when you’re trying to deal the likes Bobby Simmons, Josh Boone, Tony Battie and Trenton Hassell you’re not going to have teams beating down your door.

All are serviceable and professional players, but don’t have the star power those former Nets did and quite frankly don’t have the appeal.

The trade deadline hits at 3:00 p.m. today and there’s a good chance the Nets will stand pat. Something may happen after the deadline, in the form of a player being bought out for the right price. Otherwise nothing major is expected.

We know: Why would you want to mess with 5-49?

It’s all part of the plan – to build for the future, to use all they money they cleared up by trading Carter and Richard Jefferson and use it this summer with Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov’s signature affixed to all checks.

The Nets don’t want to mess with the money they freed and take back salaries unless it’s from a player they think can help them. They want expiring contracts and draft picks. They want assets. They want anything that’s going to help them improve markedly this summer.

They can’t get much worse and can’t feel much lower or frustrated than they did last night.

The Nets had a chance to be 6-48, record their first two-game winning streak of this difficult season and beat a second-straight team with a .500 record.

It was all there, all set up for them to win. But all the plays they made the night before in Charlotte the Nets didn’t make at home against the Heat, who were without Dwyane Wade after the first period because of a calf strain.

That should have been the ball game for the Nets. That should have propelled them to the win. But the Nets, after opening the fourth period with some life provided by many of their bench players, couldn’t finish.

There’s blame to be shared in this one.

The Nets stopped going to Brook Lopez. Coach Kiki Vandeweghe removed Keyon Dooling and Kris Humphries for Courtney Lee and Yi Jianlian. Lee struggled offensively – missing all nine of his shots – and Yi couldn’t guard Michael Beasley.

Dooling, meanwhile, scored 10 of the Nets’ 18 fourth-quarter points, including a three-point play to put them up six with 4:56 left. Humphries was 1-for-7, but he was active with 12 rebounds.

You can second-guess a lot of things after a loss like this, after the Nets ended the game with hitting just one of their final 12 shots.

“We couldn’t hit a shot for the life of us,” Vandeweghe said.

Devin Harris took some of the blame, saying he should have called less pick-and-rolls and run more plays for Lopez down the stretch. But there was plenty of blame to go around after another sloppy fourth quarter.

In Charlotte, Josh Boone grabbed three offensive rebounds in the fourth, leading to seven points. Last night, the Nets missed 20 shots, had five offensive boards and scored just two second-chance points.

The Nets didn’t make the plays they needed to against the Wade-less Heat. But in all likelihood the same players will get a chance to correct things Friday versus the Raptors.

The trade deadline may produce nothing for the Nets or nothing much. It could be the quiet before the summer storm.

Al Iannazzone covers the Nets for The Record (Bergen County, N.J.)