A first round sweep at the hands of the Boston Celtics, a play-in tournament appearance, and more questions than answers heading into the offseason. Where do the Brooklyn Nets go from here?
From their roster, to their coaches and front office group, and even their ownership, nothing about the Nets franchise is a sure thing at the moment.
Starting at the very top, one would assume that billionaire owner Joe Tsai would be heavily involved in any offseason discussions regarding the team he shelled out upwards of $3.3B to acquire.
Yet as ESPN’s Steve Fainaru pointed out earlier this month, Tsai has been more than happy to relinquish control of the day to day operations over the past few years to his front office. This stems from a litany of factors, chief among them the ongoing tensions between the league and the Chinese government.
Adam Silver & Co. are currently in the midst of a very public high wire act where the league has been vocal on social justice issues at home, but has been turning a blind eye to human rights issues in China so long as the money keeps flowing. Tsai, whose company Alibaba is the equivalent to China’s Amazon, has at times been an unwilling poster child for the uneasy relationship between the NBA and China, and has taken a back seat role with regards to the Nets as a result.
So while Tsai will ultimately be signing the checks at the end of the day, the notion that he’ll take a page out of the Jerry Jones “hyper involved owner” playbook anytime soon can be dismissed outright.
In the absence of an omnipresent owner, one would assume that the coaching staff and front office would have a firm handle on the future of the franchise. But if their media availabilities have made one thing clear over the past few months, it’s that there doesn’t appear to be much consensus within the Brooklyn organization at the moment.
While Hall of Fame worthy when compared to how franchises like Sacramento have been run in recent years, Nets GM Sean Marks time with the club has been a largely uninspiring run.
After winning only 48 games combined during his first two years with the team, Brooklyn has qualified for the post season each of the last 4 years. Unfortunately for Nets fans, their runs have been relatively short lived with only one trip beyond the first round during that span. In fact, the Nets have now been swept twice in the past 4 seasons, and sport an ugly 5-16 playoff record since 2018.
When it was announced that Brooklyn was pairing Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving together, many thought it would usher in a new era for the franchise, and that Larry O’Brien trophies would be headed to the Barclays Center in the near future.
Instead, because of injuries and vaccination related issues, the Nets have gotten only 103 games out of Irving over the last 3 years combined. Meanwhile the media circus, which followed the team around all season chronicling Irving’s vaccination saga, took its toll on everyone in the organization. So much so that James Harden forced his way out of town once again, and the eternal optimist Steve Nash looks like he’s seriously contemplating why he took the Nets head coaching position in the first place.
The former league MVP has a basketball resume that can stack up against anyone’s, which was largely why Marks made the decision to move on from Kenny Atkinson and bring in Nash in 2020. The thought process at the time was that in order to reign in the egos of some of the best players in the NBA and get them to buy into team concepts, you needed a coach who had the credentials as a bonafide superstar himself.
And while it seemed like sound logic at the time, the execution has been anything but smooth thus far. While Marks has certainly done his best to surround Nash with talent, actually getting them on the floor has been a different issue altogether.
Whether it was New York State’s vaccination requirements with Irving, Harden having enough of the “will he/won’t he” play drama and wanting out himself, or Ben Simmons coming over but never playing a minute for the club, Marks’ moves have failed to move the needle for Brooklyn in any meaningful way in 2021-22.
In turn this led to the New York media creating the storyline that Nash isn’t fit to coach this Nets team. While it may be true that more than a few eyebrows were raised when it was first announced the Canadian would go from zero basketball coaching experience to head coach of an NBA title contender, assuming that the whirlwind of off court distractions that descended upon the Nets this year would have been handled better by a seasoned NBA bench boss is equally as questionable.
2021-22 was the perfect storm working against Brooklyn. But whether Nash returns as head coach next season may not be as simple as the front office giving him the green light. For anyone who’s paid attention to his post game pressers, or even his body language over the last few weeks, he doesn’t exactly look like he’s loving his role in Brooklyn.
A millionaire several times over, the 48 year old may be looking around the league and seeing personalities like JJ Reddick, or Kendrick Perkins living a relatively stress free lifestyle as talking heads and wonder whether the pressures of being a coach in New York is the best use of his post playing career time.
But at the end of the day, regardless of what Nash, Marks, or Tsai’s visions are for how 2022-23 will unfold, the immediate future in Brooklyn likely boils down to what KD wants.
If the knock on KD when he went to Golden State was that he “chased a title” or that it was always “Steph’s team”, then he’s certainly done a good job of establishing the fact that the Nets are HIS team.
In spite of a career year (when he was allowed on the court) for Kyrie, everyone around the league and watching at home knew who the alpha in Brooklyn was. And when push comes to shove, the decision as to whether Kyrie gets extended, or shipped out of town will likely be reached via heavy consultation with Durant.
Irving has a $36.5M player option for 2022-23, but will likely be looking to secure his final big money/term deal sooner rather than later. After going through what they did in 2021-22 does KD still believe that the Nets best chance at capturing a championship comes via tying up big money with Kyrie? Hard to say.
Durant has gone out of his way multiple times this season to defend Kyrie and reiterate what an integral part of the team he was. But after averaging a 21/5/5 stat line in their series against Boston (largely buoyed by a 39pt Game 1 performance), can KD trust that Irving is still the player who hit a game winner in the Finals against the Warriors? Hell, can he even trust that he’ll show up to work everyday in 2022-23?
These are the types of conversations the average fans aren’t privy to, but are most definitely going to occur between the two superstars this offseason.
And with an owner who is purposely distancing himself from the spotlight, a GM with limited cards left to play, and a coach that’ll be taking a long hard look in the mirror as to whether he wants to run it back, it’s far from the only important conversation regarding the Nets that will take place this summer.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner