As the trade ᴅᴇᴀᴅline approaches, teams often get distracted.
If anything, the Nets seem determined.
Before the Nets’ Wednesday night’s debacle against the Wizards — their last before the ᴅᴇᴀᴅline — they had won a season-high three consecutive games.
But they ended up stumbling against the league’s sorriest team and failed to win a fourth straight, which would have been their longest streak since 2022-23, and came up woefully short.
And this in a season where they are tanking, where they have already traded away Dennis Schroder and Dorian Finney-Smith while Cam Johnson, Day’Ron Sharpe and Nic Claxton are all linked to trade rumors.
But Johnson’s name had constantly come up in rumors since the season started, and they only got louder when Schroder and Finney-Smith were shipped to the Warriors and Lakers, respectively.
At this point, blocking out the rumors has almost become old hat for Johnson, Sharpe, Claxton and the rest of the Nets. Schroder ended up with the Jazz as part of Wednesday’s Jimmy Butler trade.
“I think our group has handled it great because if you think about it, our group has been involved in talks from the beginning, right?” coach Jordi Fernandez said. “I think that’s the reason why they just kept working and keep competing. And these last few days [are] not different than whatever weeks ago when some trades happened.
“So I think the fact we’ve been involved in things, it made [it] more like a normal thing for us. And you saw it [Tuesday]; guys played hard, and I’m expecting our guys to play hard. Obviously, if somebody needs to talk to anyone or has questions or whatever the case may be, we’re open to talk to them like we’ve always been. It’s part of the business and we have a few hours left here.”
The trade ᴅᴇᴀᴅline is 3 p.m. Thursday.
Though Nets general manager Sean Marks loves to operate in stealth mode, taking particular joy in not letting the media or opposing front offices guess his next move, reading the room and the tea leaves can give hints about which direction he’s leaning.
Listening to sources around the league, and — more importantly — watching what the Nets actually do suggests there’s nothing seismic imminent.
Johnson had missed six straight games with an ankle injury while he was simultaneously being linked in trade rumors.
But after Johnson told The Post that he’d been confident Marks would come to him if anything was brewing, he played for the first time since Jan. 21.
That return was a sure sign of him not being moved.
Claxton said these Nets haven’t been distracted at all by the trade talk.
“If you look at it like a lot of people play right now, they have nothing to lose. So we’re just going out and just playing as hard as we can because we don’t have [anything] to lose,” Claxton said. “It’s a golden opportunity for a lot of players and they’re doing a great job taking advantage of it. So that’s where we are with it.”