Don’t sleep on the NBA just yet, because the dealmaking is far from over.

Perhaps it’s not as exciting as the heady days at the start of free-agent season, when the Nets were reaching an agreement with Shareef Abdur-Rahim, and the Knicks talked about adding Antoine Walker. But these last few weeks of summer are still important.

A year ago at this time, the Nets were making deals to sign Ron Mercer, Jacque Vaughn, Travis Best, Rodney Buford, and Eric Williams. They got a grand total of diddly-squat from those five players, which was one reason New Jersey’s bench was so anemic last season.

Conversely, teams that manage the free-agent endgame smartly end up being far deeper than their counterparts. Case in point: Denver picked up DerMarr Johnson and Greg Buckner during the death throes of free agency last summer, moves that allowed the Nuggets to survive Voshon Lenard’s season-long absence.

Meanwhile, Phoenix added a little-used center named Steven Hunter who turned out to be its top reserve, and even lowly Toronto made a few inexpensive pickups (Matt Bonner, Milt Palacio, and Loren Woods) who helped ease their suffering.

This summer New Jersey looks to be faring a bit better, although part of that is due to good luck. First and foremost, the Nets had the good fortune to lose out in the bidding for Aaron McKie, whose picture should be next to the word “finished” in the dictionary. McKie was the least productive backcourt player in the NBA last season, averaging a meager 5.3 points per 40 minutes.

When 33-year-old guards lose it, they rarely make it back, which is why McKie doesn’t project to do much better this season. My projections for this season (from the upcoming Pro Basketball Forecast) show McKie averaging 9.4 points per 40 minutes – a miserly total for a shooting guard – and shooting 41.8%.

The Nets can do better than that with some of the remaining candidates they’re considering for a perimeter spot on the bench.Those include DerMarr Johnson,Wes ley Person, Casey Jacobsen, and Jason Kapono. As the chart below shows, all four players significantly outplayed McKie a year ago and project to do so again this year.

The pick of the litter is Johnson, an ex-Knick who may command more salary than the Nets can pay. Johnson is the youngest of the bunch and also has the best recent track record, plus his defensive ability should endear him to Lawrence Frank.

All the others have major warts, with Kapono and Person being defensive liabilities and Jacobsen projecting to perform even worse than McKie. Kapono seems the best of the bunch. He also fits a need with his ability to play small forward, providing some cover if first-round draft pick Antoine Wright proves unready.

Up front, the Nets were a bit more clever. New Jersey has reportedly agreed to terms with big man Robert Traylor with the remainder of its mid-level exception, adding a fifth post player to what suddenly looks like a very deep frontcourt rotation. New Jersey already had Nenad Krstic, Marc Jackson, Jason Collins, and Clifford Robinson, so the Tractor was more a luxury than a necessity.

But looking at his recent production, the Nets will get good value. Traylor had an off year last season, but his 40-minute averages of 12.3 points and 10 rebounds are nothing to sneeze at.

The Knicks should have gone after Traylor, too, but they made a mistake by targeting another Cavs castoff in DeSagana Diop. Diop has played some amazingly bad basketball in his four-year career, but both the Knicks and Dallas – after seeing Diop’s strong week of summer-league play – were duped into thinking that he could turn the corner. Fortunately for New York, Dallas won the bidding, sparing new coach Larry Brown the nuisance of benching Diop two weeks into the preseason.

The Knicks’ pursuit of Diop was baffling, but really, what about the Knicks isn’t these days? The fact they were interested in a player as bad as Diop is bad enough, but – in addition – it didn’t fill a need. New York needs another big man right now like Hoboken needs another bar.

The Knicks have Jerome James and Channing Frye in the middle, plus three power forwards who can play center in a pinch in Michael Sweetney, Malik Rose, and Maurice Taylor.

Meanwhile, the backcourt remains on the thin side. While offseason pickups Nate Robinson and Quentin Richardson will help, New York also should be targeting many of the same guards the Nets are looking at – especially if one presumes that Penny Hardaway and Allan Houston won’t be factors this year.

Overall, the final weeks of free agency look like more of the same from both area clubs. The Nets, though spared a mistake with McKie by the Lakers’ higher bid, have followed an intelligent, logical blueprint to supplement the bench as much as possible in the areas where they need the most help.The Knicks, in contrast, seem to chase whatever player strikes their fancy without any real regard for a larger plan.

The Nets have built twice the team with half the budget, and this week’s events showed us one more reason why.

Mr. Hollinger is the author of “2005–06 Pro Basketball Forecast.”