The Nets made Williams happy and will be able to keep him beyond this season. We’re talking about Shawne Williams, not Deron.

Shawne was given a two-year deal by the Nets, which was a good signing. He can play both forward spots and no matter if Brook Lopez is in the middle or Dwight Howard, Shawne Williams is going to get plenty of open looks in the corner. Deron Williams will make Shawne Williams a better player.

Deron Williams will make all of the Williamses on the Nets better. There are four now, but with all due respect to Shawne, Jordan and Sheldon, only one really matters.

The preseason opens Saturday against the Knicks, the regular season next week, and nothing has changed for the Nets. The roster looks a little different, but they still haven’t assembled one that

So much for the circus-atmosphere general manager Billy King said the Nets would avoid this year. Can’t wait to see what happens when they open their first training as the Brooklyn Nets.

Their last camp as the New Jersey Nets began with reports that Dwight Howard would ask for a trade from Orlando and could be Newark-bound by Friday afternoon. Then reports said the Magic were considering filing tampering charges because members of the Nets organization, including owner Mikhail Prokhorov, had met with Howard.

King denied that was so. And the Nets were not close to acquiring Howard on Friday. But for the second straight year – which happens to be the second year of the Prokhorov-King-Avery Johnson era - the Nets were embroiled in drama before the basketballs hit the court for

Avery Johnson joked that when the time comes for the Nets to get something done with free agents, he’s like Mariano Rivera.
 
“They bring me in to close,” Johnson said today.
 
Johnson can give the final sales pitch – he ultimately decides how much a player plays. But the two biggest things for the Nets in their pursuit of any free agent are Mikhail Prokhorov’s fortune and Deron Williams’ future.
 
Williams declared his intentions yesterday, saying, “I plan to stay.” That should help the Nets lure some players. But the almighty millions could be the deciding factor.
 
The truth is the Nets are going to have to spend more than they probably would like in order to get Nene or Tyson Chandler or Caron Butler or even to bring Kris Humphries

Deron Williams is doing everything he can to put the Nets and their general manager Billy King at ease. But Williams also is letting King know he’s on the clock.

Williams met with beat reporters at a SoHo restaurant not long after he went on WFAN and declared, “My plan is to stay.” Williams said similar things to the writers after lunch.

His plan is to opt out after the season, but stay with the organization. He said he had a “strong feeling” that he would re-sign with the Nets next summer. But King has roughly eight months to turn a team that won 24 games last season into a championship contender.

The best way to leap tall buildings in a single bound is by acquiring Superman.

It’s not Dwight Howard or bust, but if King can make a deal with Orlando

After such a long lockout-generated layoff, it’s busy season in the NBA and the Nets should be among the busiest teams.

They have the money – up to about $24 million for free agency – the star point guard and some assets to at least be in the conversation to acquire Dwight Howard.

Negotiations for players and free agents should heat up over the weekend and early next week, building to the expected opening of camps Dec. 9. Here are some pressing issues concerning the Nets and their roster and one major issue that seems to be put to rest – for now.
 
 
D-Will Won’t
Deron Williams’ agent Jeff Schwartz said yesterday what many people were already thinking, including Nets execs: his client won’t sign an extension with the Nets and will become

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – Billy King wasn’t with the Nets when LeBron James’ announced his “Decision” or when the team settled on their Fab Four in free agency last year.

This is King’s first time going through the process in full as Nets general manager and one thing you know is he will be is aggressive.

He was in his pursuit of Carmelo Anthony and ultimately in landing Deron Williams, and that’s what the Nets need now.

Teams were permitted to speak to agents today for the first time since the lockout began on July 1. That official kicking off perhaps the biggest Nets’ offseason since Jason Kidd was a free agent in 2002 because of what lies ahead.

The Nets are going to Brooklyn and would like to take Williams with them. So King needs to

The Nets’ past and future converged Wednesday on Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues where retired forward Albert King reminisced about growing up in Brooklyn and GM Billy King talked about what moving here will mean for the franchise.

But the more immediate future remains very much on the Nets’ minds.

They can’t do anything because of the lockout, but the Nets have plenty of work ahead of them in New Jersey before they get to Brooklyn.

The Barclays Center is set to open for the start of the 2012-13 season and the only way to make sure Deron Williams is there is by getting the players that will keep the All-Star point guard.

Naturally, none of this was said when Billy King and assistant general manager Bobby Marks gave beat writers a tour of the arena construction site.

After the Nets brought in draft pickups MarShon Brooks, Jordan Williams and Bogan Bogdanovic to meet the local media Monday, they promptly sent the ones that will be with them next season to California to work out.

This made perfect sense because of the labor situation. If there is a lockout -- as expected -- starting Friday there can be no contact between the players and the teams.

So Brooks and Williams flew to meet coach Avery Johnson and general manager Billy King at P3 in Santa Barbara for some training until they can’t talk to him anymore.

Brooks and Williams were given what the Nets want them to do this summer, what workouts, what things they need to improve on –- basically everything they should do to make sure they’re ready when the work stoppage ends and/or

After every draft, the team’s top executive or coach says they got who they wanted or never thought this player would drop to them. But the Nets meant it last night.

They never expected shooting guard Marshon Brooks to drop anywhere near them, but he did. And when he did, general manager Billy King did what he does best on draft night – he made a trade.

King now has been involved in draft-night trades in eight of 12 drafts he’s been part of as an executive.

The Nets targeted scoring Euro swingman Bojan Bogdanovic so strongly that they brought him in for a second, private workout, yesterday morning and saw enough of him to decide they were going to move up in the second round for him.

They liked the way Jordan Williams rebounded, especially in a difficult conference