During the trade deadline, there was a flurry of activity that had a significant impact on the trajectory of the season. However, no team was more central to this than the Nets. In under a week, Brooklyn sent Kyrie Irving to the Mavericks and Kevin Durant to the Suns, resetting the franchise and shifting the balance of power to the West.
These moves were made in response to the players expressing a desire to change teams, and they garnered plenty of reactions from around the league. Among those with opinions was Hall of Famer and NBA on TNT analyst Shaquille O’Neal.
When asked about the players’ requests for trades and subsequent moves, O’Neal took a personal accountability approach in offering his perspective on the situation.
On Thursday, Shaquille O’Neal made some direct comments regarding the ill-fated “Big Three” of the Brooklyn Nets.
Although O’Neal began by discussing the trio of James Harden, Kevin Durant, and Kyrie Irving, it appeared that most of his remarks were aimed at the mysterious Irving.
While acknowledging that Durant “was not a problem” for the Nets and admitting that he didn’t know Harden well, Shaquille O’Neal suggested that “Mr.” Irving “had a lot of stuff going on.”
“I did a lot of crazy stuff but at the end of it all, I knew my mother was watching. I tried to keep it professional,” he told Ben Golliver of the Washington Post.
“Sometimes you just have to look in the mirror. When you ask to go somewhere and it don’t work out, it’s not always somebody else’s fault. I was raised different.”
Brooklyn’s first departure was Harden, who was traded to Philadelphia in the middle of last season as part of a deal that also sent Ben Simmons to the Nets.
Last summer, Durant expressed a desire to be traded but was persuaded to stay, only to later witness Irving ask for and be granted a transfer to Dallas earlier this month. As a result, Durant sought an exit and was subsequently traded to the Phoenix Suns.
Overall, the Nets’ “Big Three” only played a total of 16 games together.
