It has been less than a month since the Nets acquired Gerald Wallace in a trade-deadline deal with the Trail Blazers.

Wallace has quickly earned the praise of Nets coach Avery Johnson and virtually every player on the roster as one of the team’s most important players, both on the court and inside the locker room.

“He’s a veteran,” Gerald Green said after Sunday’s 122-117 overtime win over the Cavaliers. “A lot of the guys are young … Gerald’s been in the trenches. We all will listen to a guy like that who’s been through it all.

“He comes in [and] he plays hard,” Deron Williams said. “He fits into a lot of systems, any system, really, with the way he plays. He does a lot of things on both ends of the floor, and he’s been a great leader in the locker room, as well.”

via Tim Bontemps of the New York Post