Back in February, it seemed like the trade that brought Thaddeus Young to the Nets for Kevin Garnett was a sudden, fevered deadline deal. But over the last eight months, it's become clear that the deal took a while to pull together.
The central figure from the beginning was Flip Sanders, then part owner, team president and coach. Sanders, who died on Sunday, worked with all sides in the deal, with Young, KG and Billy King.
The deal had been in the works, off and on, for months. Sanders wanted the Nets to do it, had been "begging" the Nets to do it for a while, as one league source put it.