Brooklyn Nets
The 2021-22 Brooklyn Nets can be defined by being preseason title favorites that finished in 7th place in the Eastern Conference and got swept in the first round of the playoffs by the Boston Celtics.
What did we learn?
Kyrie fucked it up.
Harsh words from the get-go, but there is no denying their merit.
Two years ago, the theme in our season preview for the 2019-20 Brooklyn Nets was: Will Kyrie fuck it up?
(He did back then, too. His antics have always been a distraction of the worst variety.)
This was supposed to be a Superteam with the biggest Big 3 and one of the best offenses of all time. This team was the preseason title favorite.
Until…
The New York City mandate and Kyrie’s refusal to get vaccinated.
Kyrie is an amazing and talented player, but his decision to not get the shot fucked up this entire Nets season, wasting not only a year of his prime, but more importantly, a year of KD’s prime, one of the best players to ever play this game.
How can KD be cool with this? He doesn’t seem like the type not to give a shit. KD is the type to give an EXTRA shit. But so long as he stays married to Kyrie as his best-buddy teammate, he seems doomed and destined to fail. Perhaps that’s the challenge that he wants, the greatest challenge of them all.
But you can’t count on Kyrie. In three seasons with the Nets, he has played in 103 regular season games out of 226 possible. KD’s health and games played is questionable, too. (And guess what? Ben Simmons is the one you can count on the LEAST.)
Harden was beyond fed up with Kyrie’s shit, and he asked out once again.
The Beard departed Brooklyn as abruptly as he arrived, and the Brooklyn Big 3 Dynasty To Be won just one playoff series together.
The Celtics, the very team that Kyrie spurned and previously fucked up, swept the Nets right out of the first round. The Nets were the only team to get swept in the playoffs, gone fishin’ faster than you can say “play-in champions.”
The Nets were supposed to be THE Superteam of them all, but the fact of the matter is: Superteams are so, so dead.
And yet, if Kyrie and Ben Simmons actually did get their shit together, and if these guys actually played a full season all on the court at the same time, this could still be a lethal team as they theoretically always have been on paper. Ben Simmons IS the exact type of player to put alongside KD and Kyrie with his size, defense, rebounding and transition game.
All of those ifs are so incredibly significant.
Not to mention it sounds like the Nets front office is having second thoughts about signing Kyrie long term.
Like, how could you not??
But the word is also that the Nets haven’t spoken to KD since the end of the season…
Who knows what will happen next for this torrentially unstable franchise.
The one thing we know for certain is that Kyrie fucked this all up.
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Bonus Ball
Our boy @WorldWideWob had some very fitting notes on these Brooklyn Nets in his post-Celtics sweep edition of Radio Roulette:
They have nobody to blame but themselves. When there is nobody to blame, there is everybody to blame.
KD absolutely HAD to play 40 minutes a game for a long, long time. Playing in playoff games in March is a death sentence.
Guess what? Chemistry = VIP. You gotta have reps!
Kyrie said — he admitted PUBLICLY — that they were trying to develop chemistry on the fly, that they needed time to gel.
The regular season MATTERS!!
And the always fabulous Tom Ziller penned in his always fabulous GMIB newsletter after the Celtics sweep of the Nets:
Look at Kyrie’s career like this. In the three seasons as LeBron James’s co-star, Irving’s team won 10 playoff series. In Kyrie’s other eight NBA seasons, his teams have won a total of four playoff series. And Kyrie has only been active for two of those victorious series.
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Additional Notes
KD scored his career-high 55 points this season against the Hawks, but it came in a loss. And Kyrie took four more shots than him.
Brooklyn’s record this season with Kyrie in the lineup, including regular season, play-in and playoffs: 15-19.
Joe Harris only playing 14 games this season due to ankle surgery absolutely deserves a mention. Harris is one of the best 3-point shooters in the game. (But he didn’t do jack-shit in last year’s playoffs against the Bucks.) Having Harris and Seth Curry on the court together certainly would provide a lot of pristine shooting.
The depth here did not translate how we thought it would. Blake Griffin’s Brooklyn honeymoon phase ended abruptly. He looked so creaky. And so did LaMarcus Aldridge and Paul Millsap, who were old, slow and could not space the floor. But credit to Aldridge for still holding it down in the mid-range.
Shout out to the rookie, Cam Thomas! The Nets could always just blow it up and build around Cam.
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Did our preseason Over/Under prediction hit?
The health at the top is still too much of a concern for us. Under 55.5 wins.
Nets 2021-22 record: (44-38)
Yes! This one was a Pure Lock.
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What’s Next?
The Nets do not currently have any draft picks, #17 is headed down to H-Town.
Get Ben Simmons healthy and on the court. Simmons underwent back surgery (microdiscectomy) in early-May.
Figure out what the hell to do about this Kyrie-KD conundrum.
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Favorite Nets Highlights of the 2021-22 Season:
The above video from TNT might be one of the best videos on the entire internet.
