Almost a year after his turbulent three-year stint with the Brooklyn Nets ended, Kyrie Irving made a comeback to Barclays Center.
On February 6, Irving and the Dallas Mavericks were in the city, less than a week after Kevin Durant, his former running partner for the Nets, returned to the place where they had shared dreams of winning NBA titles. Rather, a club contending for a play-in spot in the Eastern Conference had taken the place of one that fell short of championship expectations.
“It’s going to look different when you trade some franchise players and things are mixed around,” Irving remarked following the Mavericks’ 119-107 victory in the second meeting of Dallas’ current seven-game winning run. “The sensation will be altered.
“On this court, you have some of the world’s greatest players competing. However, the pressure has changed and it’s now time to start over.”
When Sean Marks took over as general manager of the Brooklyn Nets in February 2016, the team looked nothing like the NBA superteam that consisted of Irving, Durant, and James Harden.
Then, Brooklyn lost possession of its next three first-round draft picks and was on the verge of missing the playoffs. The team for this season seems set for the same end.
With fewer than two months left in the regular season, the Nets are 21-34, 11th in the conference. Additionally, they lose control of their next four first-round picks even with the draft picks they acquired in the Irving and Durant trades.
Marks fired Jacque Vaughn on Monday, the eighth anniversary of his hire, marking the third time in his general manager career that he has done so. The team’s collapse over the previous two months culminated in a 50-point loss to the Boston Celtics right before the All-Star break.
Earlier this week, Marks stated, “It’s about the level of compete,” in reference to his choice to let go of Vaughn. We are not going to be the league’s most talented team. I’m not a moron. I am fully aware of that. However, these young men are talented in their own right.
“These are the kinds of things one should anticipate when one finds themselves in our current situation—where one is clinging and struggling to obtain whatever it is that one desires. I would like to see it during the course of the next 28 games.
“And that’s probably, to be quite frank, some things I haven’t seen.”
Though the team’s recent troubles haven’t been helped by Thursday’s crushing defeat in interim coach Kevin Ollie’s debut, Brooklyn hopes to see such changes under his direction.
Even if the Nets come back to claim the final play-in position in the East, Brooklyn is still depending on its future rather than its present to win, just like it was under Marks’ leadership
