Although Irving makes a valid argument, there is no way for anyone to know the solution. It will now be intriguing to observe how the Nets recover from their most recent collapse.
The current Brooklyn Nets will always be remembered as one of the NBA’s worst disasters. Never before has a team with so much potential disintegrated so rapidly, and it’s impossible to point the finger at anybody but the front office since they made mistakes along the road that ultimately contributed to their demise.
However, it is also no mystery that Kyrie Irving shares some responsibility for this. Throughout his time with the Nets, he consistently looked for methods to divert attention from himself and make himself inaccessible to his colleagues.
James Harden said he came to the #Nets to play with KD & Kyrie: "That didn't happen as much as I'd like to or probably the organization wanted to. It was just something where I knew it wasn't going to change. So I just had to make an individual decision." #NBA #Sixers
— Brian Lewis (@NYPost_Lewis) February 12, 2023
Harden, while discussing his tenure with KD/Kyrie:
"Frustrating. It's a lot of what ifs, I think when you play less than 20 games together. So it's a little bit frustrating, but it is what it is. Hopefully everybody's in a good place now and we can move on."
— Nick Friedell (@NickFriedell) February 12, 2023
On the Hoop Collective podcast, around the thirty-minute mark, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst and Nick Friedell discussed the following:
Friedell: “The consensus in talking to the other writers after we walked out and listened to him crush the situation and crush the fact that the organization didn’t do more to try and bring him back, the person he was talking to is Kyrie Irving.”
Windhorst: “My read on his quotes—not having been there and reading the quotes—I mean, he didn’t absolve the Nets, but my read on it was that he was basically saying this is Kyrie’s fault.”
Friedell: “100 percent, that was my read, too, standing there. That goes to what all the people in the Nets organization feel. Do I think there was frustration with KD at the very end, especially after what occurred over the summer? Sure. But there was a respect level that Kevin had come in there every day, and as the star of the team had put in the work to earn the respect from top to bottom in the organization. Kyrie, it’s all been well-documented, he just could not be counted on to be out there every night.”
Kyrie made the decision to forgo the COVID-19 shot and remain ready for games. Kyrie was also suspended for sharing anti-Semitic content on his account.
These are only the most recent instances of Irving’s long history of causing unrest and turmoil everywhere he goes.
Harden’s trade from last season should have served as a warning to everyone that this administration wouldn’t continue for very long since it was the first domino to fall in the chain. James left the Nets after less than two seasons because the politics and off-court controversy were too much for him to bear.
Considering how things turned out for the Nets, it’s difficult to hold him responsible for that in retrospect. In reality, it appears that by departing before the worst of it, Harden may have been right all along.
