When the Brooklyn Nets signed Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving in 2019, they instantly became one of the favorites to win the title. The favorites tag was cemented further when they made two-time MVP Steve Nash their head coach a year later and then traded for James Harden a few months into the season.
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Some even threw around the word ‘superteam’ to describe the collection of talent. However, this iteration of the Nets never reached its ceiling, failing to ever reach 50 wins or a conference finals.
Durant appeared on a recent episode of the Mind the Game podcast, and for the first time publicly, he and Nash (who co-hosts the show with LeBron James) dove deep into what went wrong for them in Brooklyn. On his latest livestream, Kyrie also shared his take, revealing that he had reservations about Nash from the beginning.
“I already had my own thoughts on how the coaching situation was gonna go. I felt like there were other candidates out there that could have definitely been our head coach that had championship experience,” Kyrie said.
“I think Steve had championship experience in his own way in his role that he played at Golden State, but as far as being head coach, I had my own thoughts,” he added, before revealing that not only was he skeptical of Nash stepping in as a first-time head coach, but the feeling was mutual.
“He even admitted to me that he had his own reserves on coaching me, and I had my reserves on being coached by him. We had already hashed that out, but I’m not gonna sit here and pretend like yeah, it was all easy around everything in Brooklyn,” said Kyrie.
Contrary to how it may initially sound, Kyrie isn’t throwing blame around while making it seem like he didn’t have issues of his own. This is just his honest assessment of the situation.
Kyrie mentioned the difficulty of having Durant come back from the Achilles tear that he suffered in Golden State. But then he quickly pivoted to taking personal responsibility for his shortcomings.
“During that season, I had a breakdown where I went through some family stuff at home that I had to address,” Kyrie said. “I ended up not going into work for a certain amount of time, and I got killed for that.”
That seems like a reference to Kyrie’s refusal to take the COVID vaccine, a decision that cost him 35 games due to New York City’s vaccine mandate. “I take my accountability for not being in the greatest space mentally, physically, [and] emotionally,” Kyrie admitted.
The high-water mark for that team was when Durant hit what looked to be a series-clinching 3-pointer against the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semis, only for replay to reveal that his toe was on the line.
The Bucks won that game in overtime and went on to clinch the title. The Nets were swept by the Celtics in the first round the next year, and then broke up not long after.
They say time heals all wounds, and it seems like being a few years removed has helped everyone on that Nets team come to grips with the failure, with all accepting their share of responsibility.
Kyrie is set to miss most of next season, recovering from the torn ACL he suffered in March. But when he comes back, he’ll once again be surrounded by talent, while also being coached, ironically enough, by an all-time great point guard.
Except this time, it’ll be Anthony Davis, Klay Thompson, and Cooper Flagg waiting for him, with Jason Kidd on the sideline.
