National Basketball Association

After a loss by a matter of inches, what's next for Kevin Durant and the Nets?

Updated Jun. 20, 2021 2:44 a.m. ET

By Yaron Weitzman
FOX Sports NBA Writer

For a moment, it looked like the Nets had pulled it off.

With his Brooklyn Nets trailing by two, Kevin Durant caught the ball along the right wing, took two dribbles to his left and spun back to his right. His size-18 Nikes were right up at the 3-point line, and he lofted the ball over the outstretched arms of P.J. Tucker, and it rolled through the net with just one second remaining.

The sold-out crowd in Barclays Center erupted.

"I thought it was a tre," Durant would say later. "But my big-ass foot stepped on the line."

After the basket, between grimaces and deep inhales as he walked to the bench, Durant saw the referee signal that the shot was a 2-pointer, and replay confirmed the call, sending the game to overtime, only the seventh Game 7 in NBA history to feature an extra period.

After the game, one in which Durant played all 53 minutes and scored 48 points — the most ever in a Game 7 — but the Nets still lost 115-111, ending their season, Durant said he saw a screenshot of his shot, frozen at the point where his toes rubbed across the 3-point line.

"I saw how close I was to ending their season," he said.

Closer than he even might have realized. In 2018, Durant told NBA writer Chris Herring that he wears shoes that are a size too big because "I’m already skinny as it is, and I don’t need anything else weighing me down. I want to be aerodynamic out there, and I guess that’s how I think of my shoes as well." Had he been wearing size-17 shoes Saturday, the Nets might now be preparing for the Eastern Conference finals.

Instead, they’re going home early, a superteam full of superstars who together couldn’t make it past the playoffs’ second round. There’s no shame in how the Nets lost or whom they lost to. This was a battle between what might be the league’s two best teams, and the Nets spent the majority of it with one superstar watching from the sideline and another hopping around on one leg.

Yet in an all-time great duel between two all-time greats, the Nets still almost knocked off a desperate Bucks team featuring a two-time MVP — Giannis Antetokounmpo — playing some of the best basketball of his career (31.9 points on 57.4% shooting to go with 12.9 rebounds and 3.6 assists).

The Nets squeezed everything they could out of what they had. Durant played 141 minutes in the series’ final three games, resting just eight. James Harden, despite a bad hamstring, played the entirety of Games 5 and 7. But without their stars at full strength, the Nets just didn’t have the fire power to hold off the Bucks.

"I mean, you're missing Kyrie [Irving], and James is on one leg, it's, you know, you have to understand it's not the same," Nets head coach Steve Nash said after the game, his voice hoarse and worn down. "And so, you know, I still thought we could win it. Clearly, I think we proved tonight that we could, this game could have gone either way. And so you always know there's a chance. Anything could happen, and I think we just faced one too many obstacles this year."

Later, he added: "It’s been a really difficult year. We've had a lot thrown at us."

The list is long, and Nash recited some of it. Durant and Irving both missed significant time. The roster was gutted early in the season to trade for Harden, who then missed 21 of the team’s final 23 regular-season games because of a hamstring injury. The three stars played in just eight games together in the regular season and just five games together in the playoffs. Also, COVID protocols robbed the Nets of much-needed practice time.

The question going forward, though, is how many of these obstacles were one-time issues and how many could become part of the fabric of the team.

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It’s unlikely that there are any more megatrades in the pipeline, and the pandemic seems to be subsiding, meaning the Nets next season should have more time to practice and more space in the schedule to give their stars some rest. But is there any reason to believe that Irving, who hasn’t played more than 67 games in any of the past four seasons, can be relied upon to show up every night? And, sure, Harden was one of the league’s more durable players before this season, but he’s also 31, with thousands of grueling minutes on his odometer. Maybe this season was a fluke, or maybe it’s the start of the back end of his career. And while Durant proved that his Achillies injury hasn’t diminished his skills, his long-term health will always be a concern.

There are also other questions facing this Nets team. Six of their players, including key contributors such as Bruce Brown, Jeff Green and Blake Griffin, are set to become free agents. The front office, led by Sean Marks, has proven itself capable of filling out the roster — despite so much cap space tied up to Durant, Irving and Harden — by unearthing hidden gems. But can they strike gold again? We just saw how important depth is come playoff time.

The Nets will also have to decide how to handle the contracts of their Big 3. Durant, Harden and Irving are all eligible to sign long-term extensions. We can assume the Nets will offer them, but will the trio sign? Odds are yes, but when it comes to Irving and Durant, it’s always best to avoid assumptions.

The good news is that the Nets have one first- and three second-round picks to play with this summer. An offseason of rest, coupled with a training camp and regular season to build continuity, should do this group wonders. But nothing in the NBA is guaranteed, especially not with the trio the Nets have hitched their franchise to, and while on paper the Nets appear primed for a long run, you don’t have to squint that hard to see a future in which we look back at this loss to the Bucks and wonder what might have been had Durant’s sneaker been just one inch farther from the hoop.

You won’t be surprised to learn, though, that the Nets had a different outlook.

"We were just talking about it in the locker room," Nets forward Joe Harris said after the loss. "This thing is far from over for us."

Yaron Weitzman is an NBA writer for FOX Sports and the author of "Tanking to the Top: The Philadelphia 76ers and the Most Audacious Process in the History of Professional Sports." Follow him on Twitter @YaronWeitzman.