The Brooklyn Nets offseason is getting started much earlier than they thought it would be. A team that came into the 2021-22 season with championship aspirations fell well short, as they ended up in the NBA Play-In Tournament.
They were able to navigate that, defeating the Cleveland Cavaliers. That earned them the No. 7 seed in the Eastern Conference and a matchup against the No. 2 seed Boston Celtics. The series didn’t last long, as the Nets got swept as they were the only team to not win a game in the first round of the playoffs.
A big reason that the Nets were in the position that they were was that their stars, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, did not play like stars every game. Given how their roster was constructed, Brooklyn needed them to play outstanding every night and they just didn’t get it.
Following the game, Irving committed to remaining with the Nets. He added that he looks forward to managing the franchise with Durant going forward, which elicited quite a response from Stephen A. Smith during an appearance on “Get Up” on ESPN.
“REALLY!? Really? Are you kidding me? … The first thing you have to do is commit to showing up to work!”
Smith blasted Irving, as he is as responsible for the team’s shortcomings this season as anyone else. Remaining unvaccinated led to him sitting out until around Christmas and then playing only road games for a few months until the vaccine mandate in New York was changed.
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But, by that time, it was already too late for the Brooklyn Nets. James Harden was detaching himself from the team and eventually was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers. Durant injured his knee, which sent the team into a tailspin.
Availability is the most important ability an athlete can bring to the table and Kyrie Irving does not provide that. As Smith points out, Irving and Durant have played in only 58 out of a possible 244 games together. Durant has had his fair share of injuries that have kept him sidelined that contributed to that, but Irving’s decisions he has made come with consequences as well.
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Those consequences are a team out of rhythm heading into the postseason, stuck in the Play-In Tournament, and then facing off with a Celtics squad that matches up with them well. It resulted in an embarrassing sweep and a franchise that will have some work to do this offseason rebuilding the roster.
