Keep your eyes on Brooklyn this Summer

 The Brooklyn Nets got swept out of the playoffs.

If I wrote that sentence in 2013, it’d make some sense to me. Writing it when the Nets have Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving in 2022 is troubling. The Boston Celtics out coached and out played Brooklyn in every aspect of the game. Brooklyn was the title favorite at the beginning of the year and for majority of the regular season—even with everything that went wrong for the Nets. The consensus favorite got swept out of the first round. Brooklyn’s “Super team” assembled in the summer of 2019 has failed in three straight seasons. Make whatever excuse you want, they have failed. This point is extremely interesting for what the immediate future might hold for the Nets. We’ve seen in the past and the present; perceived great teams drastically under preform and get bounced in the playoffs. Even teams with all-time players. However, we’ve never seen a situation like this.

Brooklyn right now seems like a pot on the stove that’s about to boil over. Kevin Durant has been oddly quiet throughout a season that has come from the depths of hell. A team with three of the best 15 players in league, has seen one of them get traded away (James Harden, who took just two shots in the second half of an elimination game and is no-man’s land in Philadelphia), one who had one great game in the playoffs before bottoming out and disappearing (Kyrie Irving {no pun intended}), and one who had not shown up in the playoffs until it mattered the most (Kevin Durant). Irving is a free agent after the finals end and will test the waters even if he ultimately returns to the Nets. As he should, because even while limited this season—Irving still proved to be one of the best guards in the NBA—and will want to be paid as such even with the side show that comes along with him. Durant while great in both regular seasons he played with the Nets (and one god-like three game stretch last postseason) has not got it done when the games mattered most (insert shoe size joke here). Bruce Brown is an Unrestricted Free Agent at the start of summer and will be a highly sought-after player from title contenders. Joe Harris will be coming back from multiple ankle surgeries, and Ben Simmons, well who knows… All of this would have been unbelievable in October, but it’s the reality Brooklyn is faced with. One of the only bright spots is that Kevin Durant is under contract for four more seasons. Cam Thomas is primed to take a second-year jump after having an impressive rookie season. And Seth Curry has a full season to gel with the full group. That’s about it. Those are the silver linings.

What’s surrounding the rest of the team is uncertainty. Will Kyrie Irving return; and if he does, how much will it be for? Will Steve Nash be back as the head coach of this team? Will Bruce Brown and Nic Claxton be back? Will Ben Simmons not be injured and over the mental health issues he has been battling for over a year? Will what the Nets bring in this offseason be enough to beat Milwaukee, Boston, and Miami? The amount of “will this happen” questions could fill the Barclays Center twice.

Right now, this team is a playoff team, but that’s it. Brooklyn was the only team in the playoff tournament to be swept out, so the Nets are the worst playoff team when you play the games. They have holes that hopefully sneaky free agent signings, and a full regular season playing together can fix. If so, the Nets could be a finals team, but they are a FAR way away from even walking into the door of the NBA Finals.

The main thing that I keep coming back to with this team because I understand every summer has its fair share of craziness. So if this it is with the Brooklyn Nets that were assembled in 2019 the moniker for this team will be: “what could have been?”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 2023 Offseason is Brian Cashman's Biggest Test Yet

Image
   Now that the World Series is over five days from now the offseason begins. With that in mind, this is the biggest offseason that Brian Cashman will have in his 25-year tenure as Yankee General Manager. For the first time since 2016 the Bronx Bombers watched the postseason from their couches, and they earned that right. Amazingly, this team finished over .500, although not that far above that mark. This iteration of the Bronx Bombers finish with the same record as that 2016 team—but the feeling with this squad feels different. Following the 2016 season, there was hope of the two power bats that would usher in the “Baby Bombers,” and in that offseason, the farm system was rated in the Top 10 in all of baseball. There was almost certainty that Brian Cashman would put a championship team around Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Greg Bird, and Luis Severino that would be a title contender for years to come. There was hope. And that hope almost turned into reality. Almost. But, that was then
Read more

The Question going into the Trade Deadline for the New York Yankees

  There is a crossroads in the Bronx in between River and 161 st Street right now. As New York Yankee Manager Aaron Boone likes to put it “[the season] is right in front of them.” The second half of the season is for the taking. As we move into the dog days of summer the Bronx Bombers are nine games out of the division and now a game and a half out of the AL Wild Card race following a disappointing first series in Colorado. With that, the historic starting Tampa Bay Rays have cooled off, going 3-7 before the break while showing signs of being mortal. Baltimore, who has been keeping pace with Tampa, didn’t look like a Superpower when they split against the Yankees two series before the break. The AL East is still a Spartan Training Facility with every team above .500, the Orioles holding the first Wild Card spot, and the “struggling” Boston Red Sox tied the Yankees in the Wild Card race. And unlike Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire, help is not on the way. Aaron Judge’s toe is still a m
Read more

The Answer for the Mets

  As Yogi Berra would say “it’s déjà vu all over again.” Buck Showalter is an all too familiar place. The 67-year-old manager has taken a time machine back to 2012. No, he is not managing in Baltimore anymore, however that’s what it feels like the end of Showalter’s Oriole tenure in Queens right now. The Mets simply can’t get out of their own way. With Pete Alonso likely headed to the Injured List, the Mets scored 10 runs last night in Atlanta. 10 runs on the heels of back-to-back gut-wrenching losses at the hands of the team that has foiled the Mets for the better part of almost three decades, the Atlanta Braves. 10 runs with their hired ace, Justin Verlander, who was looking to put together good starts consecutively for the first time all season. The Mets looked like they were about to exercise some demons in Atlanta last night, and then, the other shoe dropped. It wasn’t good enough. Again. Last night, I wrote that the Mets season was on the line with Verlander toeing the slab. Well
Read more