Carmelo Anthony

Every general manager, and every team official in every sport says the same thing before every draft: We’ll take the best player available — regardless of the team’s needs.

Of course, when you’re Billy King, the Nets’ general manager, and your team finished 24-58 last season, your team has plenty of needs. Therefore, the odds are “the best player available” when the Nets’ turn comes up at No. 27 overall in tonight’s NBA draft probably will fit one of those needs.

What do the Nets need? Well, with Kris Humphries being a free agent, there are zero power forwards on the current roster, so that would be a place to start. They also need a starting small forward, and, assuming the team doesn’t re-sign free agent Sasha Vujacic, they’d like to add some perimeter shooting as well.

With just eight players under contract, and a projected $18 million in salary cap room under the current collective bargaining agreement, King will look to fill some of his most pressing needs through free agency — whenever that begins. But if he spots a player in the draft he believes can come off the bench right away and contribute something, he’ll nab him — even if he has to trade up a few spots to do it.

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And what of the Knicks, who pick at No 17?

Donnie Walsh will run one last draft for the Knicks before stepping down as GM, but he has done most of the heavy lifting already for the team in signing Amar’e Stoudemire as a free agent last summer and trading for Carmelo Anthony in February. Center and shooting guard are obvious holes in their roster, and maybe they could use a young point guard, too. And since they have no room under the current salary cap, they don’t figure to be a player in free agency, so the draft will be where they’re looking to improve their roster.

NETS

Needs: Power forward, small forward, perimeter shooting.

Players who may fit their needs:

Jordan Hamilton, 6-8 G/F, Texas. Classic jump shooter with good range, and can post up smaller players. Most likely won’t be there at 27, but if he slips into the 20s, King could look to trade up and get him.

Tyler Honeycutt, 6-8 G/F, UCLA. Athletic player who can not only shoot, but get to the basket, rebound and play defense — he led the Pac-10 in blocked shots.

Kenneth Faried, 6-8 F, Morehead State. Newark native broke Tim Duncan’s career record for rebounds, and impressed in NCAA Tourney. Likely won’t last till 27, but if he did, he’d be hard to turn down.

Jon Diebler, 6-6 G, Ohio State. Four-year player who hit 50.2 percent on his 3-point shots as a senior. Specialist could be taken in the second round and contribute off the bench.

Trey Thompkins, 6-10 F, Georgia. His 15 percent body fat measurement at the NBA Combine is a big reason he could fall to 27 – or even to the second round.

JaJuan Johnson, 6-10 F-C, Purdue. First team All American is an athletic big with a decent jumper who has the ability to score. But he’s apparently kind of soft, which is why he should be around at 27.

Jeremy Tyler, 6-10 F/C, Japan. One of the most intriguing players in the entire draft because he skipped senior year of high school to go overseas for two years. The first year, in Israel, didn’t go well, and the second year he played in a weak Japanese league. But he’s got an NBA body and could be a find for someone late in the first or early in the second round.

KNICKS

Needs: Center, shooting guard, point guard, perimeter shooting

Players who may fit their needs:

Gary A. Vasquez/US PresswireWashington State’s Klay Thompson dribbles during the Pac-10 tournament this year.

Klay Thompson, 6-7 G, Washington State. This pure shooter’s stock has risen so much that he is expected to get picked high and may be gone by the time the Knicks pick. If he’s there, he could be the next Danilo Gallinari.

Iman Shumpert, 6-6 G, Georgia Tech. Another whose stock has been rising, apparently. Not long ago, he was pegged as a second round pick, at best, in a draft filled with point guards. But with teams looking at him as a combo guard who can contribute off the bench, now it looks as if he could sneak into the first round.

Markief Morris, 6-10 F, Kansas. Defensive-minded twin brother of Marcus Morris could get picked in the top 10 or anywhere in the teens. Knicks could use a shotblocking big who can guard people one-on-one.

Nikola Vucevic, 6-11 F/C USC. He’s big (260 pounds), and he can shoot outside jumpshots (34.9 percent 3-pointers at USC last season). Likely could start at center right away.

Kenneth Faried, 6-8 F Morehead State. An energy guy who can defend and rebound and do all kinds of dirty work. Minor bonus would be getting a Newark kid, which would surely irk the Nets’ marketing folks.

Nolan Smith, 6-4 G, Duke. A point guard who can score? This is another guy the Nets would love to have, but who also might work for the Knicks.

For more Nets coverage, follow Colin Stephenson on Twitter at twitter.com/ledger_nets

This is where the Nets will make their last stand.

The last big game of the Nets’ 2010-11 season will be played tonight at the Prudential Center, when the Nets welcome their hated cross-river rivals, the Knicks, to Newark.

This is how it is when you are a team that is out of the playoff hunt in the final weeks of the season — you must look for things to keep you interested as you play out the string. A road game against the Pistons on a Wednesday that isn’t being televised anywhere? Yawn. A home game against the Knicks — in front of a packed arena with half the fans rooting for the visiting team? Much more exciting.

“Hey man, I’m from Europe — you don’t have to tell me about these games, the ‘derbies,’ the local rivalries and stuff like that,” Sasha Vujacic said of playing the Knicks for the final time this season. “You live for it, in a way. But they’re you know, obviously, having a little bit better season than us and probably it will be an interesting game. We’ll see what will happen. Both teams are pretty good with the matchups — and they’re a team that can get hot. Once they get hot, you’ve got to find ice and cool them down.”

The Nets were unable to do that in any of their three previous meetings, and lost all three games, the most recent of which was last week in a matchup that was televised on ESPN, YES and MSG. Deron Williams came back from a six-game absence to rest his aching wrist to play in that one, and went on to play in four straight games before sitting out Wednesday’s 116-109 loss to the Pistons in Auburn Hills to see a hand specialist about his wrist.

His status for tonight’s game is up in the air, and Nets coach Avery Johnson said Wednesday he would announce at shootaround today whether Williams will play tonight, and whether he will play again this season.

The Knicks have injury worries of their own. Point guard Chauncey Billups (thigh) and forward Amar’e Stoudamire (ankle) are probably questionable, too, as the playoff-bound Knicks may decide to rest the pair.

Johnson also has said that the injured Damion James (sore right foot, 10 games missed) and Kris Humphries (sprained ankle, bruised heel, four games missed) need to get back in the lineup by tonight or it doesn’t make sense to come back for the remaining three games of the season. James, who made the trip to Detroit, didn’t rule out a return tonight, but didn’t seem confident he’d be back, either.

For more Nets coverage, follow Colin Stephenson on Twitter at twitter.com/ledger_nets

This is how it is when you are playing out the string.

With no playoffs as incentive to force them to bring their best game every night, the Nets must look for reasons to get up for each game individually. Sometimes, they motivate themselves enough to produce an effort like they did against the Knicks. Often, though, the games look more like the ones against Houston and Philadelphia.

“Well, it’s hard, but it’s no excuse,” Sasha Vujacic said of the Nets’ chore of getting themselves pumped up enough to play well. “We are all professionals. We know what we have to do, and we’ve got to do our part. We’ve got to be able to do it as well, but it’s just frustrating. We had that little run after London and little hopes of playoffs, and it’s just a different kind of mentality (since the Nets were eliminated). We’ve got to win a couple, and it’s going to be okay.”

Motivation shouldn’t be a problem today, certainly — not when LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and the Miami Heat come to Newark to take on the Nets at 6 p.m. at Prudential Center.
“Everybody wants to play those guys,” point guard Deron Williams said. “Hopefully, our energy will be up. There should be a lot of excitement in the building; hopefully, not too many Miami fans.”

Coach Avery Johnson says all the time that he won’t make excuses for his team — then he runs down the long list of them: how the Nets were affected by injuries, most recently to Kris Humphries; how many of their key players have played more this season than they ever have; how the team was affected by all the Carmelo Anthony drama; how Williams has only played two games in the last two weeks.

But in the locker room after their 115-90 loss Friday in Philadelphia, Johnson told his team the story of Anthony Robles, the Arizona State wrestler with one leg who won an NCAA championship last month.

“He never made excuses,” Brook Lopez said of Robles. “And (he displayed a) continuous will to fight against the odds. We definitely need to take some spirit from that one.”

It will help tonight that Williams — who had missed six games to rest his sore right wrist before returning Wednesday in the game against the Knicks — will be in the lineup against the Heat. It will also help if Humphries, who missed Friday’s game with a sprained ankle, is sufficiently healed to be able to get back in the lineup. And it will help if Lopez, who scored only four second-half points against the Knicks and then was held to 11 points (all in the first half) against Philadelphia, can bounce back mentally and physically.

A desperate Vujacic also made a plea to Nets fans to help in any way they can.

“It’s going to be one of the last home games,” he said. “I hope that Prudential Center is going to be packed and with our fans because we need that right now. We need that energy from our fans for 48 minutes.”

For more Nets coverage, follow Colin Stephenson on Twitter at twitter.com/ledger_nets

Avery Johnson promised a daily update on Deron Williams’ status, but the coach couldn’t — or wouldn’t — say whether his point guard, who has missed six straight games because of his injured right wrist, will play Wednesday night when the Nets visit the Knicks at Madison Square Garden.

Williams, who is bothered by a strained tendon in the wrist, has not played since March 18 in Milwaukee, when he fell and landed on the wrist, then was forced to leave the game before it was over.

Johnson, Nets GM Billy King and Williams huddled the next day and decided to shelve Williams for the next three games, at least, before re-evaluating. Then they kept him out for two games over the weekend in Orlando and Atlanta, and on Monday announced he wouldn’t play in tonight’s game against Houston.

But Williams told reporters Saturday that he was “eyeing’’ tonight’s game as a logical spot to try to return because it is “a big game.”

“Like I said (Monday), he’s day-to-day,” Johnson said. “And we’ll figure out if he’s going to play in a game this year or not. And if he does, we’ll see how he gets through it and talk about the next one after that — if and when that happens.”

Williams went through shootaround today, but did not take part in the contact portion of the exercise. That wouldn’t preclude him from playing Wednesday, however, because Johnson admitted Williams is one of the few players he would allow to play in a game even if he had not practiced first.

Johnson said he considered starting Travis Outlaw at small forward, but decided to stick with the same starting five he used for the three games the team played on the road last week, using Sasha Vujacic at small forward in place of the injured Damion James (foot).

Johnson said he could turn to the 6-9 Outlaw on Wednesday night against the Knicks’ 6-8 Carmelo Anthony, but cautioned that “there are certain players that no matter who you play on them, they’re going to score. You’ve got to make sure that you can continue to score.”

Quinton Ross (back) met with a surgeon, but Johnson said the team hasn’t decided if Ross will have surgery. Ross, who missed 12 games with a back injury, returned Friday in Orlando but took a knee in the back and was forced to leave that game on a stretcher. He has not played the last two games.

Johnson said assistant coach Larry Krystkowiak has been given permission to talk to the University of Utah about their head coaching positionA.

Brook Lopez said his arm, which has a calcium deposit, hurts. But on the bright side, he got the stitches out of his chin that were put there after he was elbowed by Milwaukee’s Andrew Bogut.

Former Net Terrence Williams did not make the trip to New Jersey. Williams had surgery to address a lingering abdominal injury originally suffered back in November, while he was with the Nets. Williams has now been out eight games with the injuryA.

For more Nets coverage, follow Colin Stephenson on Twitter at twitter.com/ledger_nets