There are two ways they can go this year:
1. Get some short contract bench help or some veteran help before the deadline and improve their depth. Not a great result for us. Their record will improve.
2. Trade core players for picks in an effort to get back into the draft in some way, shape or form. Best possible result for boston.
Without their own picks, the 2nd option doesn't make sense for them. They are not going to get a good enough return from Lopez and Young to justify them going into a full rebuild. They'll do option 1 this season and then try to acquire additional talent in free agency using the jump in cap space and Johnson's big contract coming off the books.
They're likely going to miss the playoffs with the team they have and are going to be hard-pressed to compete for a spot in this Eastern conference even if they add some bench help (what veteran is going to want to sign with that team?). Given that reality, they should start thinking about the future and that means considering bringing in draft picks, which means trading someone away. It's not definite that they'd do this but they're not going to be well positioned to bring anyone of value over in free agency so it would absolutely make sense to ditch some irrelevant talent now for the prospect of talent when it means something later.
Some sort of Lopez for young players and picks? Sign some reclamation and rehabbing projects from the scrap heap, probably overpay for them?
Oh, it's going to take a miracle for the next 3 years not to suck in Brooklyn.
Lopez for a young prospect + picks package is really the only deal that makes sense. I get that option 2 doesn't make complete sense as you want to have the high value of your own pick when you sacrifice wins. Getting back into the draft with some form of first round pick at least helps speed up the process though surely?
Trading Lopez doesn't make much sense. They just aren't going to get that much return for him. You've got to salary match to make the trade work and Lopez makes 19.7mil. Also the Nets are up against the luxury tax line so they are not going to take on more salary than they send out. Which teams would actually need or want Lopez, be able to match his salary and give the Nets enough in return to justify the trade? Given all that, I can't think who an't think of any realistic trade proposals for Lopez and I haven't seen anyone propose one either.
First of all, teams, who after taking on Lopez's salary, and who can send out a little bit of salary but still stay under the cap (Utah, Philly, Portland), don't need to "match" any salary at all. They just need to send back one of these things (from the excellent CBAFAQ website):
-A player under contract.
-A future draft pick. If a pick is protected (see question number 87), then no more than 55 picks in a single draft can be protected.
-The draft rights to an "NBA prospect" -- a player with a reasonable chance of becoming an NBA player during his career, or a contributing player in a reputable professional league (as determined by the league office).
-The right to swap unencumbered picks in a future draft.
-$75,000 or moreEven if you go over the cap, you can still qualify for a Trade Exception, although I don't really understand how they are approved, or if those teams who can stay under the Tax-line are even eligible. But suffice to say, it is a misnomer to say that all trades need to have "matching salaries"moving both ways; and this is ignoring three or four team trade provisions too.
Obviously the problem with Lopez is the horrible length of his monster deal. Finishes not next year but the one after that. I can't think of any situation where a GM takes on 2.5 years of Lopez, even for a protected second round pick in 2020, but if he continues his stellar play of late, and Portland are sitting 6th or 5th in the West at the deadline, they may jump - unlikely, but they might.
Next Philly might do it, because - Philly.
Utah would need a complete nightmare situation, but that might happen too.
The Nets don't need to "justify" taking back anything. They know they are screwed, they would be over the moon to be released from the burden of paying his salary. My last point is that, ironically, someone like Joe Johnson is unfortunately a better candidate for a deadline trade (although almost everyone - including Brooklyn - has Cap Space next year, so expiring deals are not as useful as usual), just because he is in his last year of a bad deal (as opposed to being an expiring deal..)