Brooklyn We Go Hard, or maybe not anymore.
In the space of a week the Brooklyn Nets have gone from looking like contenders, to.. what? Let's figure that out.
Now THIS is how you make an entrance. Less than 10 hours after his introductory press conference, new Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia, who spent more than $2 billion to buy a 57% stake in the team, has just turned a good team great. He said “yeah… I’M HIM!”. The team that was in the NBA Finals 2 years ago, has just added Kevin Durant. Kevin freaking DURANT!
When you’re a team that’s in the midst of contending for an NBA championship, there is no building for the future (unless you’re the 2022 Golden State Warriors) so for a team like Phoenix, you have to utilise Devin Booker’s prime, and what you can still get out of an ageing Chris Paul. You must go all in for what you have now. One championship this season is more than worth a handful of future draft picks, you don’t want to be left in NBA purgatory where you’re not good enough to win but your draft picks aren’t low enough to select a young star. The Suns have listened, decided to sell their future for the now, and the result: they’re the favourites to win the Western Conference.
When I wrote the “about” section for this newsletter, I began by introducing one of the principles that Nipsey Hussle conducted his business with. I’m now going to share with you another. “All Money In” – is the practice of investing in yourself, so that you can truly be the best version of yourself. From a business perspective, that means re-investing your money into your business to keep growing it, rather than splashing the profits. I feel like Mat Ishbia may have been listening to one of the Crenshaw rappers’ mixtapes as this is exactly the principle he’s followed. In just one trade, he’s taken the Suns’ luxury tax bill from $35million to around $69million – a small price to pay if this results in an NBA championship, owners around the league trying to save money on luxury tax payments need to take note.
Financial implications aside, you’re probably wondering about the basketball impact of this trade, and whether or not the Suns will really be the team lifting the NBA championship trophy this summer (and will I be sick watching Chris Paul finally get his elusive first ring?). Before we get to that, we must answer the question: WHAT ARE BROOKLYN DOING?!
History has repeated itself once again – another dreadful attempt at assembling a ‘superteam’ has resulted in the Brooklyn Nets bottoming out. When they traded their picks for an ageing Kevin Garnett & Paul Pierce 10 years ago, it didn’t work out, and the result: the Boston Celtics drafting Jayson Tatum & Jaylen Brown with those picks. When they traded their picks for James Harden (who didn’t even stick around long) to try and pair him with KD & Kyrie, it didn’t work out. The result: here’s a list of the picks that Houston own from Brooklyn.
2023 first-round pick swap with Nets
2024 unprotected Nets first-round pick
2025 first-round pick swap with Nets
2026 unprotected Nets first-round pick
2027 first-round pick swap with Nets
Brooklyn going into a rebuild benefits the Houston Rockets more than it benefits the nets. Yes, I know the Suns gave away four first round picks (’23, ’25, ’27, ’29) however the difference is that they have a 26 year old star on their roster in Devin Booker who almost guarantees those picks won’t be at the top of the draft even in a worst case scenario. The Nets have no such safety net (no pun intended) unless Cam Thomas proves that this isn’t just a hot-streak and he is in fact “HIM”.
By trading Kyrie Irving & Kevin Durant, the Nets have decreased their luxury tax payments from $108million to around $35million – however when you’re in a big New York market with an owner who clearly has lofty ambitions, would you simply not rather just pay the tax to contend? I’m guessing Brooklny would rather be contending, if it wasn’t for constant dysfunction leading to their star players demanding to leave. The Nets traded Kyrie because they didn’t want to pay him long-term, but if you told me that giving Kyrie Irving a contract will guarantee Kevin Durant stays, I’m paying the man. Superstars like KD are the hottest commodity in the NBA, and once you’ve got one on your roster, you don’t want to let them go.
Side-note: I would love to write a piece about just how badly the Kyrie & KD era in Brooklyn failed, and fully unleash my inner hater (lol) but today is not the day for that. Instead, let’s think about where the Nets go from here.
What’s the future for the Brooklyn Nets? Well for now it looks like they’re trying to replicate the Toronto Raptors by stacking up on 6’6”+ wing players that can defend. It’s hard to imagine all of Dorian Finney-Smith, Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson, Jae Crowder, and Royce O’Neal remain on the roster after the trade deadline; but it’s not a bad idea seeing as you’re going to need depth at the wing positions whenever you go up against Tatum’s Celtics or Giannis’ Bucks.
Trading Ben Simmons away is a whole different conversation, it was reported that Brooklyn were calling teams about trades for the controversial Aussie after they made the Durant deal with Phoenix, however I cannot confirm whether or not those other teams even picked up the phone. If i was an NBA team, I would avoid the Nets calling about Ben Simmons the same way I ignore reading the terms & conditions when signing up to a new website online.
It is not all doom & gloom for the Brooklyn Nets, however, there is a hope for the future. 21 year old Cam Thomas recently became the youngest player in the history of the NBA to score 40 points in 3 straight games (the previous youngest was Allen Iverson who had a 5 game stretch of 40+ in 1997). Nic Claxton is only 23 years old and the big-man has cemented himself as a Defensive Player of the Year candidate. Add to these two young pieces the incoming 26 year old Mikal Bridges who just had the best scoring month of his career, and is widely considered one of the best perimeter defenders in the league; as well as his agemate Cam Johnson whose three-point-percentage has increased from 35% to 46% to 47% over the past three years.
Those are some nice building blocks, however it does plunge the Nets into NBA purgatory we discussed earlier. Not good enough to win, but not good enough to get a high draft pick – but they get the last laugh, they don’t have any of their own draft picks anyway. They’ll continue to develop their players and wait patiently for the next disgruntled star to appear in free agency or on the trade market. My suggestion: try to start building a culture within the organisation again. They had something going with the Kenny Atkinson led squad featuring Spencer Dinwiddie (when he was there the first time), D’Angelo Russell and even Jared Dudley – the vibes were immaculate.
The more I look at the new Nets roster, the more I like it to be fair. Not anything close to what they could have been had they kept Kyrie & KD, but they should be fun nonetheless, and could even be a play-in team.
PG: Dinwiddie/Mills/Curry
SG: Thomas/Harris/Sumner
SF: Bridges/O’Neale/Watanabe
PF: Johnson/DFS/Ben
C: Claxton/Sharpe
As I said earlier, some of the wing players will most likely be dealt, and Seth Curry’s expiring contract could also be on the move. They’ve basically almost returned to what they were before the superstars decided to descend on their franchise. An exciting scoring guard (Thomas-D’Angelo), a young shot blocker with huge potential (Claxton-Allen), a shooter firing at a high clip (Yuta-Harris), and of course Spencer Dinwiddie is back. So let’s see what direction they head in from here.
Now, I know I started the article by promising we’d talk about the Phoenix Suns and what the acquisition of Kevin Durant means for them – but I’m trying to grow this newsletter, so please do subscribe because the next instalment coming very soon will be all about the Easy Money Sniper’s fit with Devin Booker’s Phoenix Suns. Tell your friends to sign up too and support me on this journey to independence. TMC - you guys will hear from me later on when we talk about the Suns.