The Brooklyn Nets’ plan is panning out with the addition of D’Angelo Russell

It would be easy to say the Nets lacked a plan over the last few seasons. After all, without a great player, a great prospect or any great draft picks, the Nets were mired in mediocrity with no clear path out.

An attempted home run swing — trading for Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett — landed Brooklyn in this situation. Sean Marks, hired as the Nets general manager in February of 2016, realized there was no home run swing to take, right away at least.

So the Nets waited. They lost a lot and got nothing for their efforts thanks to the Celtics owning three of their draft picks, either outright or via pick swaps. But in between all the losing, the Nets made a lot of tiny, smart moves.

They traded Thaddeus Young and Bojan Bogdanovic during consecutive NBA trade deadline days, getting first round picks in the process. They signed free agents to fairly cheap deals, spending somewhat on Jeremy Lin and Trevor Booker but making sure to leave plenty of room on their cap sheet.

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That was — and is — the most important part of Brooklyn’s plan. After teams went nuts signing massive contracts in the summer of 2016, many teams who used to have tons of cap space now had none. With the cap rising less quickly now, there aren’t a lot of teams with money available.

The Nets have plenty of cap space, and it’s their most valuable asset. According to Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical, they have agreed to trade Brook Lopez and the No. 27 overall pick in the 2017 NBA Draft for the awful, terrible, no-good Timofey Mozgov contract and D’Angelo Russell.

Russell, a player who many in the NBA are split on, was the second overall pick in the 2015 NBA Draft. There are concerns over his feel for the game and other intangibles, but he’s got star power, something that can’t really be said about anybody else in Brooklyn, with the possible exception of Caris LeVert.

Lopez has less guaranteed money left on his deal than Mozgov, as he’s got just one year left on his contract, but he’s still making $22.6 million next season. The Nets will actually reduce their cap amount for a year through this trade — Mozgov makes $15.3 million next season, and Russell gets $5.6 million.

Even if they did have to take on more cap money, this is a slam-dunk for the Nets. It’s hard to imagine a better scenario for them than taking cap space — something they’ve still got — and combining it with Lopez and a poor first round pick and exchanging it all for a star prospect.

Russell will be given every chance to pan out in Brooklyn and makes up what’s becoming an interesting young core along with LeVert. The Nets aren’t going to make the playoffs next season, but steps are being taken in the right direction.

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Even if they’re not good, the Nets get to have something valuable now — hope. Hope that D’Angelo Russell proves Los Angeles wrong and becomes a star point guard. Hope that LeVert stays healthy and forms a young, dynamic duo with Russell. Hope that the Nets can continue to pile up decent trade chips and cash in on more opportunities like this one.

The Nets’ plan is coming together. It’s a long, slow plan, but the results thus far have to be encouraging for their fanbase because nobody could’ve imagined Russell in Brooklyn last season.