Nets ink Jordan Farmar, look to avoid a single impact signing

Jul 11, 2010, 9:22 PM EDT

The New Jersey Nets are making an offer to Jordan Farmar, which means a bizarre compromise on the part of both participants.

The Los Angeles times reports that Farmar has received an offer from the Nets but has not accepted it, while Ric Bucher of ESPN says the deal is done for three years and $12 million.

UPDATE: The deal is done, with Yahoo! Sports confirming.

For the Nets, it continues the pattern we talked about earlier of signing good but not great players with the massive cap space they have after missing out on the max free agents. Farmar is a great prospect, young, with potential at a key position. But he still seems like a compromise in terms of what they were looking for this summer versus what they got, and that dissonance would seem to suggest that they may have needed to simply horde the cap space.

For Farmar… there isn’t a single NBA team with cap room looking for a point guard to compete for a starting position? Farmar wanted out of LA because of his always being in Phil Jackson’s doghouse and constrained by the triangle. But New Jersey has Devin Harris, and is wed to him for the foreseeable future. It’s unlikely that Farmar will play to the point of pushing Harris, which means Farmar has signed on to be a backup for another three years. Maybe it’s a matter of accepting reality. Maybe he’s excited about playing in Brooklyn. Maybe the offers just weren’t there.

Either way, this feels like a deal regarding two sides lunging for the middle ground.

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4 Comments (Feed for Comments)

Marky Mark - Jul 11, 2010 at 11:08 PM

What a massively disappointing summer thus far for New Jersey. For all of the hype that the new owner has gotten, nothing’s actually happened. They had to know that they were a longshot to get LeBron, same as the Knicks. The Knicks went out and got Stoudamire, the Bulls went out and got Boozer, and the Nets got. . .Travis Outlaw? Jordan Farmar?

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Drew - Jul 12, 2010 at 3:19 AM

I think Farmar should accept his role as a backup PG. There’s nothing wrong with that, but that’s where he’s at as a player. The Nets really haven’t gotten a whole lot better. Surely better than 11 wins, but still a long way to go.

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Mack - Jul 12, 2010 at 8:04 AM

Farmar played himself, instead of being a backup for a championship team, he now plays for the weakest team in the NBA. He felt he was a starter, but REALITY has really bitten him. He could have played for the champs at roughly the same amount of money. He could have made more with the Lakers in the long run, because of endorsements. Now he gets to sit on the bench playing in cold weather. HAHA, looks like another Smush Parker, he let his ego play him right out of a winning situation. So long sucker!!!

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Craig W. - Jul 12, 2010 at 11:00 AM

Farmar found out that in real life you have to think team first, unless you are a superstar. I think he is still frustrated.
I do think his style of play will fit better with the Nets than with the Lakers. Now the Nets will have a good PG playing for 48min and this should help their other players set up better shots. The one downside is Avery Johnson…can he avoid trying to micromanage Farmar. If he does, then Phil Jackson’s frustration with Farmar will be mild, compared to Avery Johnson.

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