National Basketball Association

Nets suddenly turn to the future after Durant, Irving mega-deals

Updated Feb. 9, 2023 7:54 p.m. ET

Should we start with the glass-half-full view? Sure, let’s be kind to the few Brooklyn Nets fans still out there.

They’ve been through a rough, well, week? Month? Season? Year? Years?

You get the point.

So, the good news: After all that, after tearing down the team they worked so hard to build, after becoming — and I haven’t looked this up, but it has to be true, right? — the first team in NBA history to trade two All-NBA players within one week, the Nets, thanks to the decisions of general manager Sean Marks and governor Joe Tsai, are actually in a decent spot.

Yes, their days of being championship contenders have come to an end. Yes, their dream of upstaging the Knicks and taking over New York City and becoming the standard for team building never quite came to fruition. Turns out it’s hard to overcome the capriciousness of Kyrie Irving. But once it became clear that the championship window had been slammed shut, the Nets did a good job of not only pivoting, but doing so in a way that puts them on a path toward both remaining competitive in the present and prepared for the future.

Step 1 was the Irving deal. Back in the summer, when Kevin Durant asked for a trade and Irving was canvassing the market for a new home, the Nets, according to people familiar with their thinking, decided that when the time eventually came to pull the plug, they’d trade Irving first. They recognized that dealing Durant would crush their leverage in Irving negotiations; rivals knew the Nets had no interest in holding onto Irving if Durant was no longer around.

The Nets were also able to take advantage of a new owner eager to make a splash. According to reporting from ESPN, it was Mat Ishbia, the new governor of the Phoenix Suns, who pushed for and closed the Durant deal. Sure, the Nets benefitted from some luck here — Durant wanted to play in Phoenix, a desire his circle had made clear to other suitors in the summer as well — but, after mostly ignoring Durant’s offseason trade request, the Nets deserve credit for pouncing at the right moment.

In doing so, they were able to pry from the Suns an impressive haul. First, there are the picks. So many picks! Basically enough picks to make up for all the picks they sent to Houston in the James Harden deal. The Nets, according to ESPN, now have unprotected firsts coming from Phoenix in 2023, 2025, 2027 and 2029. They also have the right to swap first-rounders in 2028. Combine that with the unprotected 2029 first they now have coming from Dallas courtesy of the Irving trade, and a 2027 top-eight protected first-rounder from the Sixers in 2027 (courtesy of that Harden trade), and their own first-round picks in 2023, 2025, 2027, and suddenly you have a stash that can compete with those belonging to the pick-hoarding Oklahoma City Thunder and Utah Jazz.

Then, there are the players.

Prying Mikal Bridges away from the Suns is a game-changer. You know how the "3-and-D" label is thrown around in a way where anyone taller than 6-foot-4, and who strokes an occasional jumper, has it bestowed upon them? Well Bridges is the legit thing, maybe the most "3-and-D" non-star in the entire league. He’s 6-foot-6 and one of the NBA’s premier perimeter defenders. He’s also drilled 37.6% of his career triples, and he’s just 26 years old, and he’s signed through 2026, and he never misses a game.

That last part isn't hyperbole. The last time he was sidelined for a contest was in high school.

Combine Bridges with Nic Claxton — leading the league in blocks and field goal percentage at just 23 years old — and you have a nice foundation on which to build. And, hey, maybe Cam Thomas — the guy who’s racked up 40-plus points in three straight games — is something, too.

There’s also enough talent remaining on the roster that the Nets can remain kind of interesting. Remember, the Rockets own the Nets’ first-round pick this year, so tanking wasn’t an option, and so it seems like the Nets are instead going to lean into a strategy of tossing a bunch of fast, long and athletic wings onto the court and wreaking havoc. And, hey, they’ll probably win some games. Likely not enough to remain in front of the Knicks and Heat in the standings, but they should be able to rack up enough victories to get into the play-in.

Put this all together and the Nets, if they want, can jump right back into the star-hunting game. The next time an A-lister becomes available, they’ll have the picks to go get whoever it is and pitch him on the surrounding talent. Considering the players they kept — Joe Harris and Royce O’Neale and Dorian Finney-Smith and Spencer Dinwiddie — I think it’s fair to assume this is the plan. As one person connected to the Nets put it to me last year, when I asked if there was any regret inside the building about getting into bed with Durant and Irving: "No, we knew what we were getting ourselves into, but getting superstars was the goal from Day 1."

And yet, despite all that, I’m hesitant to shower the Nets with too much praise.

For one, it seems like they left some meat on the bone. Holding onto Seth Curry, an in-demand shooter who will be a free agent this summer, is puzzling (my guess is the Nets decided they needed his offense, but that seems silly). Also, it seems like the Irving and Durant deals were completed with different priorities in mind. If the Nets were really planning on pressing that reset button and dealing Durant, shouldn’t they have flipped Irving for a package that featured two win-now players, as opposed to just corralling as many future-oriented assets as possible?

Also, have you noticed the one name not mentioned so far? Australian native? Former No. 1 pick? Three-time All-Star? Player they received in return for Harden?

If Ben Simmons was the player he used to be, this current Nets group would be intriguing, even without KD and Kyrie. The problem is that Simmons is no longer that player. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that he’s even a player. He regularly misses games. When he does play, he regularly disappears. He’s also signed through 2025 and owed about $115 million.

Simmons is going to handicap the Nets going forward. He’s also emblematic of why describing Marks, Tsai and the Nets’ organization as victims of Irving’s capriciousness isn’t quite right. Kyrie did make life difficult in myriad ways that no one could have predicted. But there were a few fork-in-the-road moments that the Nets clearly got wrong. Some were small. Some — like hiring the never-coached-before Steve Nash just because Durant wanted him, targeting Simmons as their primary return for Harden, believing that Irving and Durant could be won over, and turning their backs on the principles that they had preached upon rebuilding the team — turned out to be crippling.

And so, the Nets are left back where they started. They have some young pieces. They have an energetic young coach. They’re likely to talk about rebuilding and resetting the culture, about getting back to their roots, about their optionality moving forward, and the flexibility they now possess on and off the floor. And in a vacuum, they’re right. They are in a good position. Their future might be bright.

They also built and presided over one of the greatest flops in the history of professional sports.

And we shouldn't let some savvy pre-deadline wheeling-and-dealing obscure that fact.

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.

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