Lopez added eight points and four rebounds in the third while Williams, Gerald Wallace and Johnson combined for five third-quarter 3-pointers.

WSJ: Nets Loss to Bulls Ends Season

Williams is playing on a winning team with current All-Star Brook Lopez and former All-Stars Joe Johnson and Gerald Wallace, but the success has come at the cost of his own statistics.

WSJ: Williams's Assists Need Help

This opening Nets season was not at all a disappointment (try being a Bobcats fan on for size) but they are tied to comically extravagant deals for Williams and Joe Johnson and Gerald Wallace, so expectations shouldn't be low.

WSJ: Brooklyn Nets: Come On, Brooklyn: Turn On the Lights

Besides the letters (to a range of correspondents stretching from John Lennon and John Updike to Rajiv Gandhi and the socks department at Brooks Brothers), there are memorandums (many to the four Presidents he served, Lyndon Johnson and Gerald Ford being the others), notes to himself summarizing conversations he considered important, and entries from his private journal, which include some delightful travel writing.

NEWYORKER: Politics and Prose

Despite playing without injured starters Joe Johnson (heel) and Gerald Wallace (foot), the playoff-bound Nets closed their 17-day trip by making some history.

WSJ: Nets beat Cavs to set franchise mark for road wins

King then swung a deal with Atlanta for Joe Johnson, re-signed Gerald Wallace, whom he acquired last February from Portland in exchange for a first-round draft pick that turned out to be Damian Lillard.

WSJ: Lopez, Blatche help Nets hold off Pistons, 103-99

The authors, Mitchell Conover of the University of Richmond, Gerald Jensen of Northern Illinois University, Robert Johnson of the CFA Institute and Jeffrey Mercer of Texas Tech University, studied data from December 1970 through August 2007.

WSJ: A Buy Signal for Commodities

They re-signed starters Deron Williams, Brook Lopez and Gerald Wallace and traded for Atlanta Hawks All-Star Joe Johnson in hopes of being a contender in their first season in Brooklyn after they were longtime losers in New Jersey.

WSJ: Carlesimo out as Nets coach after playoff ouster