National Basketball Association

Kevin Durant avoids James Harden in All-Star draft as Nets' 'Big 3' ends

Updated Feb. 11, 2022 3:54 p.m. ET

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The "Big 3" of the NBA has officially come to an end. 

That's what happened at the trade deadline on Thursday when the Brooklyn Nets dealt James Harden to the Philadelphia 76ers for Ben Simmons and others.

Related: How the Harden-Simmons trade went down

Putting a bow on the whole thing was Nets star Kevin Durant himself, who avoided selecting his former teammate in the All-Star draft on Thursday night. With only Harden and Jazz center Rudy Gobert left on the board, Durant said he needed some size on his team before selecting Gobert.

Durant kept a straight face through the whole thing, but LeBron James could not.

A moment later, when LeBron asked Durant if Harden was healthy, Charles Barkley chimed in: "He got traded. He's healthy now!" Durant couldn't hold in his laughter at that point.

On Friday, though, thoughts turned to analysis of the Nets' star-studded trio of Durant, Harden and Kyrie Irving. 

It was considered one of the biggest collections of basketball talent in history after the Nets acquired Harden from Houston in a four-team deal in January 2021, and championships were expected to follow.

Yet the team fell short of those expectations. 

Last season, the Nets were eliminated in the Eastern Conference semifinals by the Milwaukee Bucks, losing in Game 7 by a toenail, when Durant's potential game-winning 3-pointer ended up being a 2 when his sneaker brushed the line. Durant scored 48 points, but the Nets lost in overtime.

This season has been marked by injuries to Durant and Harden, plus the on-again-off-again availability of Irving, who has refused to take a COVID-19 vaccine, making him ineligible for home games due to New York City mandate. As a result, the once-heralded Nets enter the weekend eighth in the Eastern Conference, at 29-26.

Now, with Harden gone, it's interesting to look back at the "Big 3" and consider whether or not the experiment was a success.

According to Nick Wright of FS1's "First Things First," it most certainly was not.

"I told you that tearing down a culture you'd built to serve Kyrie Irving's ego was one of the most baffling decisions I've ever seen in sports," Wright said. " … KD, Harden, Kyrie never got off the ground. The pinnacle of the greatest offensive trio that we've ever seen was rolling a Celtics team that was coming apart at the seams … This was supposed to be about how many championships they would win, and instead they won one playoff series."

Nick Wright: The "Big 3" was never going to work

Nick Wright is here to say 'I told you so' after James Harden is confirmed to be heading to Philadelphia.

Chris Broussard had a more forgiving take, however, admitting that technically the Nets were a failure, but pointing out that the team never gave itself a chance.

"They played 16 games together," he said. "Had they been healthy, they would've been dynamic, there's no doubt about it. They showed that they were in the limited time they had together."

He also pointed out four NBA groups that were more disappointing, including a Lakers team that included current Nets coach Steve Nash, along with Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol in Kobe Bryant in 2012-13.

Is it fair to consider the Nets' "Big 3" a failure? That will be left to history, but it's certainly fair to consider the result to be disappointing, even for the players themselves.

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National Basketball Association

Brooklyn Nets

James Harden

Kevin Durant

Philadelphia 76ers

LeBron James

Los Angeles Lakers

Chris Broussard

Nick Wright

First Things First