For the first time in over a year, Deron Williams and the Nets operated without the haloed hope that somehow, some way, Dwight Howard would land in Brooklyn.

But for Williams, the ideal of the Howard shortcut had already become tiresome and disappointing, long before the best center in the NBA was shipped to the Lakers in a four-team, 12-player blockbuster.

“We went down that road a lot,” Williams said Friday after scoring six points with six assists in Team USA’s semifinal cruise over Argentina, 109-83. “(Nets GM Billy King) did everything he could to try and get a deal done. They just didn’t want to deal him to us so what can you do.”

“Mentally I wasn’t in the Dwight sweepstakes anymore. It got kinda old. I’m happy for him. I know he wanted to get out of Orlando. He did that and he’s going to a great franchise so I wish him the best of luck.”

via Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News