When the Brooklyn Nets put together their superstar team Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden, it looked like they were going to be a team for the ages. Instead they got injuries, cohesion problems and a total of 16 games played together.
16.
Not exactly the incredible Championship run that they were expecting or hoping for.
Now granted, when they were together, the team went 13 – 3. They were incredible. The problem was – it was 16 games. And yes injuries happen, but realistically every team has injuries. It’s up to the team and how they manage those injuries and how they play through those injuries. These guys are all injury-riddled players. That really should have been taken into consideration when they put them all together, as well. Harden misses an average of 11 games a year since 2017. Durant misses another 29 games a year over the last 5 seasons and then Kyrie also has missed an additional 107 games from 2017 – 2020.
Kevin Durant as a player is one of the best I’ve ever seen play the game. But it seems that his legacy is going to be based on the fact that he runs to teams with the highest championship chances. He has yet to show he’s the guy who makes the team better to bring championships. Kyrie Irving another incredibly skilled player with unbelievable handles and a great clutch gene. But as the leader of a team, he is another one who just hasn’t been able to run a team. And “The Beard” has not been able to get his team to the promised land for 13 years. A great scorer, with great vision, but who was the main focal point in Houston for 8 years with a poor supporting cast – finally got to a team – but never clicked completely as a unit. Another problem with James Harden, was that he has routinely been a sulking player, he quits on teams. His leadership lacks tremendously.
This was a team that on paper has 3 guys all were very capable scorers, and are all very capable putting up 25 a night – each one of them. They had the unstoppable force in Kevin Durant, the all-around player in James Harden, and Kyrie Irving brought the ball handling skills and the one-on-one play. They looked like they were going to be a team that was scoring 120+ a night. Many people and Brooklyn Fans were expecting this. Who could possibly stop this explosive trio that was residing in Brooklyn? This was a team that was going to challenge for 70 wins. Instead they got a team that won 48 games in 2020 and this year were struggling to stay over .500 and had had their share of problems with turnovers and defense. But also, having players of that kind of caliber all together, is 3 huge egos that have to be corralled. The “there is no leader on the team” mantra that we want to think – is hard to believe.
When a team makes trades and makes moves to build their team off of superstars, they’re expected for immediate results. This team just never seemed to ever come close to what the potential on paper showed. Not expected to do what the Brooklyn Nets have done. The Brooklyn Nets experiment was an absolute disaster. Having not been able to make it to even the Eastern Conference Championship, let alone to the championship itself. Anything less to one of those levels of success, in my opinion, is unacceptable for a team with players like what they put on their roster.
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