By Max Maggard, Reporter
The Brooklyn Nets big 3 have recently been crowned the worst failure in the NBA’s history of superteams. General manager Sean Marks assembled this team by acquiring three of the most talented players of all time. James Harden and Kyrie Irving in the backcourt, with possibly the greatest scorer of all time, Kevin Durant, in the midrange. Despite the undoubtable generational talent on this roster, the Nets seemingly failed to live up to their expectations. The Big Three played only 16 games together. Due to injuries and Covid-19 restrictions, this Nets team ultimately crumbled into a drama filled nightmare. However, out of this catastrophe, recent trade moves and changes to the roster, may have recovered this disaster and spared the team’s future in the process.
This season for the Nets started off with a large amount of uncertainty. After James Harden left at the end of the previous season, Kyrie Irving’s situation remained in question. Yet despite all the talk and rumors, Irving decided to stay with the Nets and Kevin Durant for one final season.
The Nets started off this season fairly slowly, firing their head coach Steve Nash in the process. Nash was the coach through all of the ‘Big Three’ seasons, he had his moments, but ultimately failed to be as good of a coach as he was a player. Some disliked the firing of Nash, but most, including myself, were excited by the news. Although this meant that new management was on the horizon, I was excited to see if a change in coach could produce success from the pre-existing talent that the Nets’ possessed. Sure enough, new assistant coach Jacque Vaughn, JV for short, entered the picture.
At first, JV merely did his job, filling in for the head coach until the Nets would hire a big name to take control. Most people’s expectations of Vaughn were nothing more than that of an average coach, even I thought that JV was not a long term solution. However, despite doubts, Vaughn seemling coached at a very high level, the proof being in their wins. Under Coach JV, the Nets went on the largest win streak of the whole league season at the time, winning 12 consecutive games in a row. The Nets looked like a contenting team, no question. All looked to be fine with the Nets sitting second in the eastern conference, just in time for the trade deadline, where many expected the Nets to add a few small pieces to polish up this great team.
When the trade deadline began quite well for the Nets. No drastic moves were made until a massive headline flooded ESPNs stories, “Kyrie Irving Requests a Trade!” This was substantial news. News that almost nobody had seen coming, but with the Nets’ previous track record it didn’t seem so crazy in hindsight.
Long story short, the Nets traded away Irving, which then left Kevin Durant alone in Brooklyn, and it did not take long for him to request a trade out of this mess of a team. Durant left for Phoenix, and Irving to Dallas. In return, the Nets acquired a plethora of draft picks and many great young roleplayers.
So far since the trades scoured the Nets have slowly gained their stride back, currently on a three game win streak, Nets fans are hopeful for the future of this team.
