With the 2012 NBA draft completed and free agency now under way, several teams have given us glimpses into the direction of their offseason strategy. Let’s take a look at a few.

You! No, You! OK ... You!

Similar to a desperate man prowling Lavo after last call, the Nets spent the beginning of the week searching frantically for someone willing to spend the night in their spanking-new Brooklyn industrial space (really, the yet-unfinished Barclays Center resembles an oxidized armadillo carcass). As other teams cuddled on banquettes with players already under contract, the Nets bought $16 vodka sodas, disingenuously complimented gladiator sandals, and negotiated cab-fare deals to convince a potential partner to ride over that bridge. Exactly like real life.

A quick rundown of players in whom the Nets were initially interested: Deron Williams, Dwight Howard, Joe Johnson, Jeremy Lin, Goran Dragic, Steve Nash, Ersan Ilyasova, Mirza Teletovic, Ray Allen, Nick Young, and Everybody Else. It all seemed comically futile. But, lo and behold, they’ve now agreed to give Gerald Wallace a four-year deal worth $40 million, acquired Johnson along with his $89 million throat anvil, signed Teletovic, and convinced Williams to remain a Net. The lesson? Even inept Billy King can seem like the raconteur with the fuzzy hat from VH1’s The Pickup Artist if he’s given license to fling around wads of cash.

To Joe

Dear Joe Johnson,

Hey, it's Rembert Browne, Hawks fan. I'm writing to you today because you just got traded to Brooklyn, and that makes me slightly happy. Actually, let's be real, I'm grinning from ear to ear. Sports-fan me hasn't been this thrilled since we got Michael Vick, so that's saying something, Joe.

Is this rude that I'm telling you this?

I got the news of Omer Asik’s offer from the Rockets in an e-mail from a friend. The gist was that Omer, a restricted free agent, was getting paiddddddddddddddddddd — and to be clear, that’s “paid” with 19 d's. First reported by Yahoo!’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Houston Rockets and Asik verbally agreed to an offer sheet of three years and about $25 million (Asik can't sign the deal till July 11; the Bulls will have three days to match it), and as would be expected, the quick jokes followed. Instead of Dwight Howard, Houston’s new starting center could be a guy who scored 3.1 points a game last year. As someone who’s seen most of Asik’s 169 career games, the comedy was lost on me. In a world in which DeAndre Jordan makes $10 million a season, Daryl Morey was giving $8 million a year to one of the league’s best post defenders. Then I saw what he actually did.