Report: Nets going hard after trade for Josh Smith

Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov wants a contender. Badly. And he has to look at his Nets then look at the Heat and realize his side is not better than them. Or the Knicks. Or Pacers. Or Bulls (with Derrick Rose back).

And so he has a team trying to swing a big deal for maybe the biggest name up on the trade block — Josh Smith of the Hawks — reports Chris Broussard at ESPN.

While the Nets certainly want (Ben) Gordon, sources said acquiring Smith is their higher priority. A trade for Smith would seemingly kill a deal for Gordon, because (Kris) Humphries is one of the players being discussed with Atlanta.

The Nets are willing to give up Humphries and second-year shooting guard MarShon Brooks for Smith. But it almost certainly will take more than a Humphries-Brooks combination to pry Smith away from Atlanta, and one source said the Hawks want Brooklyn’s first-round pick.

This makes a lot of sense for the Nets — Smith is a vast improvement over Kris Humphries, who has taken a step back this season with his game. Smith makes the Nets a bigger threat.

But even if you threw in that first round pick I’m not doing that if I’m the Hawks. If you’re rebuilding you are better off getting cap space from Smith leaving then bringing in the slumping Kris Humphries and the $12 million he is owed next season. No, the Hawks are not getting Dwight Howard either way, but the cap spaces is better then Humphries. Plus do the trade and they get worse on the court now.

There have been reports the Hawks want a young center, which would allow Al Horford to move to the four. But the Nets don’t have that kind of guy on their roster, so now we’re talking about bringing in a third team, which makes things exponentially harder.

Expect this rumor to keep circulating — the Nets want this to happen and there’s a lot of media in New York to keep leaking this to.