I'd be astounded if he wasn't involved given that before the deadline his incredibly expensive team was disintegrating on live TV and he was about to become famous for losing the greatest player of his generation two different times.
However, he might have learned from the Boston trade and been involved in a much more reasonable way, leaving the basketball decisions to Koby and the staff and just giving his approval on the financial commitments.
He basically sent Koby out to put together a giant board of plan a, b, c, d and so on....
Dan gave final approval, but the sequence of moves and players chosen and deal frameworks were all put together by Koby and his staff.
AFAIK Dan himself did very little direct negotiating like he did with the Boston deal....he did talk with MJ about some Kemba stuff on Wednesday night/Thursday morning I believe, but ultimately it became clear to Dan there was no realistic path to a Kemba deal that made more sense for us than the plan Koby was working on executing, because it would have taken basically everythibng besides the Charlotte deal off the table.
From what I've been able to piece together....I think the deadline could have realistically gone three ways..
A- The way it actually went
B- Hill, DeAndre and nobody else. JR gone, but Tristan still here being redundant with DJ. I really did believe for a little bit on Thursday morning that the DJ stuff had traction....but the team couldn't justify having him and Tristan on the roster, and they didn't wanna give Tristan away for shorter, but dead money. I was pretty confident that Hill was coming here unless we made Kemba happen.
C-Kemba and Batum while keeping the Nets pick(and TT) or Kemba+Zeller but trading away the Nets pick.
