Nets GM Billy King not panicking over being 0-7

Losing the first seven games of the season. Seeing home attendance dwindling. Knowing your first-round selection in next June's draft belongs to the Celtics no matter what.

Times are rough for the Nets, making it tempting to try for a quick turnaround. But general manager Billy King isn't getting too worked up about it yet.

"It's sort of not panicking and just saying, 'OK, we've got to go and do this because we are 0-7 or we've got to go do this because we are 0-10,' '' King said Monday. "It's about having an understanding, having a confidence. You've just got to be patient, as hard as it is. I live in Brooklyn, so it's not something I enjoy, the fact that we are 0-7. But it's about having confidence that we've got to ride ourselves through it.

"When you are struggling, it's easy to panic and just say, 'We are going to go ahead and start over again. We are worried Boston is going to get a No. 1 pick or a No. 2 pick, so we are going to spend money so they don't, just so we make the playoffs.' ''

Still, King said he has been calling around, checking out the landscape in case the rough waters the Nets are navigating become even more treacherous. His preference is to avoid tapping into any of the $40 million in salary-cap space they tabbed for next offseason and doing something that could keep them from being active on the free-agent market.

However, should the Nets' play keep going in the wrong direction, "changes will be necessary,'' King said. "That's the nature of sports. You can't just keep going down the same path. The goal is not to do that. But we're exploring, and if we continue this way, obviously we'll have to explore to try to change things up.''

That wouldn't be all that easy, given that the Nets don't control their own first-round pick until 2019. Boston gets their first-round selection in June as part of the trade that sent Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce to Brooklyn in 2013. The Celtics also have the right to swap first-round picks with the Nets in 2017 and possess the Nets' 2018 unprotected first-round pick.

Translation: No quick fixes likely are coming soon.

"It's about adding the right pieces and being patient,'' said King, who is in the final year of his contract.

"We didn't get here overnight and we are not going to get out of it overnight. It's a reality. There is not something where it's 'OK, this is the magic wand and we are going to do this and it's going to change overnight.' We knew that going in; we knew that when we made those decisions and it didn't work. And so now we've got to gradually, systematically dig yourself out of it.''