Can we ever get beyond it? Apparently not.
In the second episode of SCOUT, the Brooklyn Nets internally produced docu-series on the 2025 Draft, assistant GM, B.J. Johnson addressed the team’s scouts and offered them his take on what they should be looking for in the “next Nets” and where Brooklyn stands in terms of priorities in general.
“A lot of work went into what Brooklyn is going to be in the future,” said Johnson who joined Seam Marks early in his nine-year tenure as GM. “Regardless of who comes in here, we’re not going to change. They’ve got to adjust to us. Overall, that’s what it’s about here.”
The reasoning behind Johnson’s statement was not further examined, but it didn’t need to be. The organization’s intentions were clear: they did not want a repeat of 2020 through 2023 when the Nets were covered less for their achievements on the court than their controversies off it … ugliness that ultimately led to. in order, James Harden, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant, three future Hall of Famers, asking out, leaving the fan base crippled and fingers pointed everywhere.
Character counts, Marks emphasized in discussing each of the first round picks in 2025, not intimating that the Big Three didn’t have character just that character will guide the team going forward.
“We’re looking for guys who have the qualities we’re looking for: high character, competitive individuals who play the right brand of basketball.” Marks told reporters after the first round. Players taken with those five first rounders were described as a “hard worker,” a “class act,” a “great young man,” or “demanding the respect.” Some all of the above.
A response to the troubles caused by the Big Three’s personality issues? Indeed it seems that the Big Three experience still colors everything the team does, for better or worse. After all, while KD, Kyrie and James are gone, the key players inside team offices — Joe Tsai, Sean Marks and Johnson — remain. Lesson learned?
Moreover, we will never be permitted to forget the Big Three era not just because of the enormity of what happened and the dreams that were lost but because they are always there to remind us, offering their own takes on why things didn’t work, which too often sounds like less like an apology and more back-biting.
Earlier this month, it was KD and Steve Nash talking with LeBron James, suggesting Irving and Harden hadn’t committed the way they should have. Now on Wednesday, it’s Kyire Irving, fulfilling the promise he made after listening to his former teammate (and apparently former friend) as well as his former coach. Like them, he did not take questions from someone objective, a writer perhaps seeking the final truth about the end of it all, but to a camera in a darkened room. (Is Nick Friedell available?)
Headlines from this one? There are a lot. Not all of them accurate reelections of what happened, but ones intended to paint him in a positive light. One big headline was that Irving blamed Durant for hiring the inexperienced Steve Nash as head coach.
“Steve wasn’t even in the play-in yet,” Irving said on Twitch stream, claiming that Durant pushed to hire Nash. “But this is your man’s. This is your man. So I got to support that. This is your man’s. Cool. You want him? Cool. You like Steve? I love Steve. You know what I’m saying? Cool. As a younger brother, I’m like, okay. I don’t care. That’s fine. You want Steve to coach. That’s fine.”
However, that is not quite accurate or accurate at all. Nash was Marks’ hire, not Durant’s. Marks and Nash had been friends and for years and Marks had tried to get his former teammate and his basketball mind on board, offering him job after job but to no avail. When Nash finally agreed to discuss the head coaching job after Kenny Atkinson was canned — Atkinson said this season that he lost his job because he was told he couldn’t handle superstars — Marks jumped at the chance to bring Nash on, no experience necessary.
KD who had worked with Nash when the Hall of Famer was a consultant to the Warriors agreed with the decision. We don’t precisely know what Irving’s role was in the process, but it was less than Durant’s. In one reported account, KD simply told Irving that Nash was going to be the coach. One theme of Irving’s soliloquy is that he was often shunted aside in favor of his teammate, that the Nets were always more interested in Durant than him.
Irving said that he didn’t meet with Nets officials before agreeing to sign, which strains the depth of Irving’s business sense at the least. After all, he did sign a four-year, $136.5 million contract that summer.
“(I didn’t meet) the Nets front office one time. I didn’t meet with the GM one time, the assistant GM one time, literally,” Irving said. “When I look back at that decision, I’m like, man, I should’ve taken some more time to delegate and figure out what’s best for me.”
He was the junior partner. Everyone understood that. While Irving says he didn’t meet with the front office, he doesn’t suggest there were no meetings with the team’s then-Russian ownership. His representatives certainly met with them as well as management. He and KD, for example, worked out how they were going to add DeAndre Jordan to the mix in the Clean Sweep.
“I wish I would’ve handled the business better and got a chance to know them first, ask them questions, ‘hey, what’s the future like?’ Instead of just committing blindly and thinking that ‘hey, we’re about to come in here and just do X, Y, and Z’ I didn’t have much power going in there. I couldn’t say who we could get and who we could not get. I couldn’t hire the coach. You guys knew my opinion on the head coach at the time.”
Irving doesn’t get much into his decision not to take the COVID vaccine but he does say that after he refused the shot, he asked the Nets to release him, which they refused to do.
“Even the people that I was in business with were pro-vaccine,” Irving said. “I’m like, OK, look, that’s fine, but just leave me the f–k out of this and let me go somewhere. I even told the Nets to release me. I said, ‘yo, can you please just release me?’ And, obviously, the money situation — different situation, I’m f–king Kyrie. I say that very aware of my position, but they weren’t just going to let me rock out.”
Bottom line for Irving, it appears, is that he wants to get beyond the criticism earlier this month that he and Harden weren’t as committed to the Nets success as KD had been. That, he admits, stung.
“When (Durant) said this, emotionally, I was like, ‘OK.’ We’re all committed to the goal at the end of the day, but sometimes not everybody’s going to follow what you want them to do,” said Irving. “I wish I had my soundboard for this, but not everybody’s going to do what you want them to do.
“Not everybody’s going to be committed the way you want them to be committed.”
At this point, Irving and Durant are not the friends they were before they joined up with the Nets. Apparently far from it. When after the two first played after they were traded, facing off in different uniforms, there were no warm greetings, no reunion.
Their relationship was not the only irritant for Durant, of course. He didn’t like Harden’s lack of conditioning, his affection for strip clubs over training rooms, rappers over teammates. Nor did he agree with Marks’ strategy in building a championship roster. In particular, he did not like the Harden trade for Ben Simmons, hated it according to what we’ve told, and he tired of Nash, thinking Ime Udoka should have gotten the big job. But no, he did not like Irving’s continuous “antics” as one team executive described the depth and breadth of controversies. ICYMI, here’s our essay from last year on the subject.
Of course, it’s all history. Next month it will be two and a half years after the final trade that ended the Big Three era with its 13-3 record in only 365 minutes of combined play. Since then as noted, Brooklyn has used the haul of players and draft picks to build “organically,” rather than with superstars. The KD trade alone has yielded 11 first rounders.
The organization and the fanbase were burned badly by the superstar experience. Durant is now on his second team since leaving Brooklyn. Same with Harden. Irving has had the greatest success since departing, getting to the Finals last year with Dallas, but he’s rehabbing torn ACL and his return date next season is uncertain..
Best wishes to all of them but at this point, they’re gone … in NBA terms long gone. Besides, Durant turns 37 in December, Harden 36 next month, Irving is 33. Meanwhile back on the practice courts of HSS Training Center in Sunset Park, Egor Demin, Nolan Traore, Drake Powell and Ben Saraf are all 19. Danny Wolf is just turned 21. Same with Noah Clowney. Dariq White is 20. That’s where the focus should be.
- Kyrie Irving opens up on doomed Nets era after Kevin Durant questioned his commitment – Brian Lewis – New York Post
- Kyrie Irving puts Kevin Durant on blast for Nets’ failed Steve Nash hire – Erik Slater – Clutch Points