As Brian Lewis points out, it was two years ago tonight KD walked off the floor at Barclays Center, never to suit up in black-and-white again
Tonight is, as Brian Lewis notes in an astute observation, the anniversary of a tipping point in the NBA and the history of the Brooklyn Nets. Read it and weep.
Exactly two years ago, the Nets were flying high. They had Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, the second-best record in the league and legitimate championship aspirations. No, make that championship expectations.
Then on Jan. 8, 2023 in Miami, Durant limped off the floor — and never came back in a Nets uniform. The next month, he left Brooklyn, and took its title hopes with him.
Since then, the league has gone topsy-turvy. The Nets have plunged into a rebuild, saddled with the seventh-worst record in the NBA. Oklahoma City, Houston and Orlando — all terrible at the time of Durant’s injury — are now contenders.
That’s all in 731 days.
Indeed, the Brooklyn Nets were 27-13, a game behind Boston for the best record in the NBA as Lewis also points out. They had won 18 of 20 after a 102-101 victory in Miami. Jacque Vaughn looked like a legitimate candidate for coach of the year.
Now, two years later, Nets fandom is experiencing as a tough a turnaround as one can imagine in the NBA. The debate now isn’t about whether the Brooklyn Nets can wind up at the top, but whether their rebuild is a race to the bottom, a tank.
“If I keep thinking about that [time], then I won’t be able to be present and [think about] what’s going on now,” said Nic Claxton who joined the team the week before Clean Sweep. “It’s easier said than done. But it’s a part of the business. I’m where I am now. I’m here for a reason, so I can’t be thinking about what was and what could be. Orlando and Houston, they’re contending teams now, that’s how we’ll be in a year or two for sure.”
So how long before fortunes turn again? No question is more important to fans. As for whether it’s a tank depends on who you talk to at HSS Training Center. No one will acknowledge the “T” word is the defining strategy for the Brooklyn Nets. Sean Marks denies the word is used in staff discussions.
But … if you’re running the show, you don’t mention it since the connotation is that your team is trying to lose to get an advantage in the June Draft.
So are the Nets tanking, you know, capture the Flagg: go ass for Ace; don’t be skillin’, think about Dylan? And does it matter what you call it? Marks isn’t denying that the Nets are very interested in those guys and others. After all, he has five picks in the 2025 mega draft and Marks himself has scouted four Rutgers games personally, seeing Harper four times and Baily twice.
Marks acknowledged to Brian Lewis last week that there’s a lot of luck, good and bad, in the rebuilding process, diverting as best he can from the tanking debate. Sure, he said in essence, losing can swing things but so can luck of either nature.
“To be frank, you’ve still got to get a little lucky. We all know that,” Marks told The Post. “The hot-button topic has always been the draft. We all know we’ve still got to get lucky. At the end of the day, the Ping-Pong balls are going to drop a certain way.
“[And] it’s health, right? It doesn’t matter what team you have, you could have the best players in the world, they’ve got to stay healthy. And you’ve got to be healthy at the right time. We’ve lived that. Some things you can control, others you can’t.”
Then, again, as the greatest GM in Brooklyn sports history, Branch Rickey of Dodgers fame, famously said, “luck is the residue of design.”
It is just a violation of probabilities. How many times out of a hundred or a thousand does Butler’s fall result in a devastating injury to Durant? How many times does KD get up, stretch his legs and feel fine? Does that change the trajectory of the Nets season, indeed their history?
Similarly, how many times does the team with the worst record in the draft finish with the fifth pick inn the Draft as the Pistons have done twice in a row. How many times does team with the the 10th worst record, as the Hawks had last season, wind up at No. 1 in the Draft with a 3% chance of winning it all.
Brooklyn does seem ready with the most draft picks, the most cap space, the most appealing of markets, etc. etc. That leaves the decision-makers. How good are they? In terms of roster building, Marks and Joe Tsai have succeeded and failed spectacularly as the two years before KD went down and the two years since have shown. That’s less about luck than management which can be more easily defined.
As for the short term, a lot will be determined by the players and their coaches. They do not tank. It’s not in their DNA. While they understand what’s going on. it gnaws at their natural competitiveness when they seen teammates, leaders, being dealt in hopes of getting more ping pong balls or second round picks. Then again, next man up!
“I wouldn’t say it’s hard. We all understand it’s part of the business, and that this is what we signed up for on Day 1,” Keon Johnson told Lewis colleague Bridget Reilly. “But one thing we can control is what’s in front of us. Night in and night out, we don’t know who is going to be laced up. We don’t know who is going to be playing, but it’s just a better opportunity for everybody to be prepared and hope that your number is called.
“Everybody in the locker room wants to win, and everybody goes out to win,” he added.
A fan thinking back to those short-lived glory days of the Big Three era knows the injury bug can devastate more than a season. The 2022 Eastern Conference semi-finals saw Kyrie Irving suffer a severe ankle injury and James Harden wrapped in so much kinesiology tape that he looked like a erector set on the move. So can the off-court distractions: Irving’s stream of controversies, each having a cumulative effect; Harden’s partying; Durant’s sulking.
So. tonight, the stakes won’t be as high as they were two years ago but with just a touch of more bad luck, the Nets could reach a new nadir. They may be able to field only eight healthy bodies, the league minimum. Somebody’s goes down during the game and well, there’s no recourse.
It is not all bad, just as two years ago it wasn’t all good, as we later found out. Offering some solace is that the first piece in Sean Marks and Joe Tsai’s rebuild does give fans hope. If they are as lucky and/or as good in the draft and free agency as they were picking a head coach, they’ll be fine. Jordi Fernandez hasn’t just won games he shouldn’t have, he’s kept things even-handed for his team who’ve seen 24 players don the black-and-white, two short of the franchise record and we’re still a month away from the trade deadline!
“I’m not going to say it’s easy, but there’s great communication within our club, and we know what we’re trying to do and how we’re trying to do it,” Fernandez said when asked about the lack of continuity prior to the 76ers tip-off. “And on my end, as long as guys go out there, compete and show growth, I’m very happy.”
Until May with the Draft Lottery and June with the actual draft, raw fandom will have to do, no matter what you’re rooting for. As the Net player most familiar with the Nets luck and competence says, it’s probably best not to think too much of where the franchise was two years ago tonight but where they’ll be two years from tonight.