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The Brooklyn Nets began their process of entering a rebuild during the 2022-23 season when they traded Kyrie Irving to the Dallas Mavericks. Though Brooklyn only ended up trading Irving because the two sides could not come to terms on a contract extension, it seems that the trade doesn’t look as good more than one year later.
In a recent article by Bleacher Report’s NBA staff in which they re-graded some of the biggest trades in the league over the past five years, the Nets did not come out as good for the Irving. In fact, compared to the grade they received when the Irving trade initially happened, it seems that Brooklyn is receiving a significant downgrade for the deal.
When B/R first gave their grade of the Irving trade, the Nets received an A+ due to their return of guard Spencer Dinwiddie, forward Dorian Finney-Smith, a 2029 first-round pick, and second-round picks in 2027 and 2029 in exchange for Irving and forward Markieff Morris. However, with the re-grade, the Nets are now getting just a B for the deal.
This makes sense given that most around the NBA agreed with the Nets trading Irving away given that he was mostly unavailable for Brooklyn due to injuries and extracurricular activities that happened during his tenure.
Where this grade ends up changing for both sides is that Irving ended up re-signing with the Mavericks following the 2022-23 season and played a huge role in Dallas getting to the NBA Finals for the 2023-24 season before losing to the Boston Celtics in five games.
With Dinwiddie no longer with the Nets and Finney-Smith most likely playing for another team at some point during this upcoming season, there is still time for the grade to improve depending on the return. So far, Brooklyn was able to use Dinwiddie to acquire Dennis Schroder from the Toronto Raptors last season and could use Finney-Smith to get one first-round pick and possibly a young player as well.