NEWARK, N.J. – The Nets’ final game this season against the Knicks lacked so much of the appeal their prior one did. Three announcements made early Friday morning took the luster out of the game and turned the attention elsewhere.

The first and biggest one came from the Nets as they revealed All-Star point guard Deron Williams would need surgery to clean out fragments and scar tissue in his right wrist and his season was over. Then Avery Johnson said Kris Humphries wouldn’t play because of his right foot injury, and his season was over.

At around the same time in Westchester County, the Knicks ruled out Amar’e Stoudemire because of a sprained left ankle.

There still was Carmelo Anthony, Chauncey Billups and Brook Lopez and a near full house at the Prudential Center, most of which were Knicks fans. But Knicks 116, Nets 93 Friday was missing most of the hype, anticipation and hotly contested play of the Knicks’ four-point victory over New Jersey on ESPN last week.

The biggest difference, no question, was Williams.

He returned from a six-game absence due to his wrist for that game at The Garden. Williams' health status going from day-to-day to out for the rest of the season certainly changed things.

The procedure, which will be done Monday, is basically a scope. And although no timetable will be given until the doctors actually go in there and clean out his wrist, Williams should be able to resume basketball activities long before training camp, whenever that is.

Remember, a lockout is expected so camp may not start when it usually does in late September or early October. It will just give Williams more time to rest it. But Nets GM Billy King said Williams should be playing golf and shooting basketballs “this summer.”

Really, that is all that matters.

When you get to this point of the season – actually once the Nets were officially eliminated from the playoffs - Williams’ health and future, Lopez’s health and future and Humphries’ health and future are the stories of importance. And Lopez and Humphries, with all due respect, are well behind Williams.

He is the future of the Nets, the most important player, the person who will recruit other stars to come to Newark/Brooklyn. If he can’t, it’s unlikely Williams will be around that long.

The Nets know that, even though they will never admit it. They knew about Williams’ wrist, too.

They might not have known it was going to require surgery. If they did, it probably would have happened much sooner. The Nets would not have put Williams in harm’s way or brought him back for the Knicks’ game last month.

“As the doctor told me some of those particles had been there for a while,” King said. “He could tell they’ve been there for a while so it wasn’t like he did any more damage.”

Originally, Williams and the Nets reported that rest would be the remedy. But the Nets’ medical people wanted Williams to undergo another MRI so they could be certain. King described the MRI Williams had on Wednesday as a “fine cut” MRI that gave a sharper image of the wrist and revealed the bone fragments and scar tissue.

“When we got the trade, we got the information from Utah,” King said. “I talked to them. They disclosed everything. We did the MRI, everything was confirmed. And then at the end of the season, Doctor [Andrew] Weiland said it’s good not only to do another one, and it’s more of a fine-cut MRI, which, I didn’t know the difference.

“There’s a 5-millimeter, then there’s the fine-cut, which is 3-millimeter. And the 3-millimeter’s the one they used at [Hospital for Special Surgery], and it showed that there was loose particles.”

If Williams would have played, the score may have been different and maybe the Nets would have had a chance to win. But they just can’t defend the Knicks and ended up being swept by them in their four meetings this season.

Not surprisingly, this was the least competitive one, yet it actually lived up to expectations.

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Follow me on Twitter: @Al_Iannazzone

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