A LITTLE AFTER after 12 a.m. ET Thursday, the Brooklyn Nets' front office decided to call it a night. They'd take a car back to a local hotel where they'd holed up as a group for trade deadline week to carry out what had turned into a sad mission: the final dismantling of the greatest superteam that never was.
The Nets had been waiting for the past couple of hours for their counterparts along with the Phoenix Suns, who 2,500 miles away were pacing around their darkened practice facility looking at spreadsheets and whiteboards, to decide whether they would meet the Nets' steep asking price for their superstar forward.