I don't think the owners are as concerned with "saving face" as much as it gets talked about. They realize that so much of heir money comes from people who would be hard pressed to name more than a few players on their team (remember a lot of people buy tickets to see Kobe or LBJ and just go to the team that is closest to them) let alone know that their team lost 2 trades to the same team.
But what is we could get DMC or Melo for all of the nest picks except the 16 one, a few other picks and assets and then we could turn Lee and s few late picks into Lopez? We would be cashed out of picks but we would still have the nets pick coming up and we'd have added what would maybe be our 2 best players.
I do agree this is all not very likely.
I guess it depends on the owner. Prokhorov doesn't seem engaged, so there's that. Nor is he from this country so the rules about facing the media and the fans are different.
If you're a typical American owner, however, it's hard to be so isolated that something like this doesn't touch you. The stories would be embarrassing. Ainge already swindled the Nets and gave them no hope for the next 3 years. Now he gets their best player and they don't even get any of the picks back in return? What does that tell your fans?
Imagine the new GM trying to explain such a deal to him:
"Hey, so remember how we bet big and traded all our picks to Boston? Now I want to deal our last remaining star to them as well."
<through Russian translator> "Well, that certainly sucks. But at least we get our picks back."
"Well, not exactly."
"We get at least one back though, right? The 2016 one?"
"No, we get two late first rounders, David Lee, and Jared Sullinger."
"THAT FAT TUB OF GOO!?? YOU'RE FIRED!"