Nets' Johnson happy with pitches: 'We showed our vision'

Avery Johnson didn't get much sleep Thursday night.

The jet carrying Nets coach Johnson, owner Mikhail Prokhorov and club president Rod Thorn didn't touch down at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey until 1:50 a.m. Friday. That didn't give Johnson a whole lot of time to rest up before the start of summer league practice Friday morning at the team's training center.

Yet one gets the feeling that Johnson was so excited about the team's recruiting trip to the Midwest that he wouldn't have gotten much sleep regardless of what time Prokhorov's jet landed.

Johnson said he is "very optimistic" about the way talks went with LeBron James in Cleveland and Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Chicago.

"You can't get inside any of these guys' heads and know exactly what's going on," Johnson said. "But we laid it out for those guys, I saw eye contact, they asked really good questions and they were there like they wanted to be there. And that's all you can ask for.

"We told our story, we showed our vision, we talked about how we already have some really valuable assets. And that's all you can do."

The Nets, who are $30 million under the cap, are one of six teams that were invited to give their sales pitch to James, the most celebrated free agent in NBA history. The Nets and Knicks spoke to him Thursday, the Heat and Clippers met with him Friday and the Cavaliers and Bulls will speak with him Saturday.

Johnson painted a picture of preparing for the meeting as if it were a playoff game.

"We had a plan. We had a game plan. We had little meetings to that point," he said. "We had like mini-shootarounds, getting ready for game day."

Though the Nets have other free agents in their sights - it's very likely that they will sit down with David Lee in the next couple of days - there are no concrete plans in place.

In the meantime, the coach feels like a kid waiting to see what he will get for Christmas.

Said Johnson: "I'm just waiting for my cell phone to ring, waiting to get an e-mail. Even though I don't twitter, if someone sends a message on twitter, I'll get it. Avery Johnson Jr. will get it."

Notes & quotes: First-round draft pick Damion James sprained his right elbow during the first day of summer league practice.