Sports are the greatest metaphor that we have for life. Kobe Bryant said that, I know because it’s been on an ESPN ad lately and those ESPN ads do tend to get churned out on repeat over and over again. But he’s not wrong. It’s constantly amazing how much sports are able to reflect politics and philosophies and personalities and human nature itself. The Brooklyn Nets have been on a few different sides of those various reflections in recent times and no doubt you’ve read plenty about all of those incarnations (hit the page tags). Right now the Nets are preparing for a new one, right now the Nets are about to enter a season seeking to prove the theory that talent trumps all. That as much as culture and fit truly matter at the very peak of basketball, as long as you have the talent then you can figure the rest out as you go.

The 2020-21 NBA season tips off with the Golden State Warriors hosting those Brooklyn Nets, two teams who effectively had a year off last season but those gap years came from extremely contrasting situations. The Warriors already have the talent. They just wanna see them all healthy again – and sadly that ain’t gonna be quite the case with Klay Thompson’s injury. Andrew Wiggins and Kelly Oubre and of course James Wiseman make this a funky Dubs side to get a glimpse at but the standards are already there, they’re merely trying to regain them.

The Brooklyn Nets on the other hand spent years in irrelevance before this. Sean Marks masterminded an incredible rebuild without any of the usual shortcuts: draft picks, superstar trades, free agency splashes. He and Kenny Atkinson carved a wonderfully modern NBA playing style with underrated players who felt they had something to prove and that process won them the adoration of folks the whole league over. Not in the least being Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving who chose to team up in Brooklyn prior to last season, thus tipping the scales from Loveable Battler Underdogs to Superstar Destination.

Only problem was that with Durant still out injured from the previous playoffs he missed the entire season. Kyrie Irving struggled with his role as a leader on the court without Durant there to play off, which was what he signed up for, and between injuries and inconsistent/selfish play and bad defeats and some questionable comments about teammates it was a regrettable season from him. The Nets still made the playoffs in the weaker Eastern Conference but they sacked Atkinson as coach in the middle of all that. Steve Nash was eventually hired to replace him despite no previous experience in that role... just his reputation as a player, a positive attitude, and good existing relationships with the two stars. Durant and Irving had seemingly won out in that struggle between past and future (seeing as there was no present last season, it was a gap year). Team first culture became player first culture. Good vibes became bad vibes. The Brooklyn Nets had changed, man.

But that was always the plan. All the team building that Sean Marks did previously was necessary only in getting them to the stage where they could attract a top level player in free agency. That’s the only way you’re gonna win playoff series and if you wanna be challenging for championships then you need at least two top level players. This is the NBA, not the G-League. The Nets don’t exist to develop players for other contenders, they wanna be hogging those rings all to themselves. Then when you get top level players you have to put them in the best situations to win and those situations don’t necessarily include Kenny Atkinson as coach. Atkinson was brilliant at working with younger players but maybe didn’t have the ruthless edge to win titles – something both Durant and Irving know plenty about through personal experience. If Durant felt that players were given too much leeway to make mistakes then maybe he was right?

Anyway, Steve Nash isn’t just there to pat KD on the back and to tell Kyrie how smart he is. He’s a genius-tier basketball mind and if the coaching specifics are gonna take some getting used to well that’s why he’s got the best and most experienced assistant coaching staff in the NBA bar none beside him, including Mike D’Antoni and Jacques Vaughn. Steve Kerr, who he’ll coach his first proper game against, won a championship in his first year as a head coach. It can be done. It’s all a matter of figuring it out as you go along... in keeping with that original idea: As long as you have the talent then you can figure the rest out as you go.

Never was that idea more on display than when Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving shared the floor for the opening quarter of the opening game of preseason. In those moments it became instantly clear that all the drama, all the worries about this team’s direction... they happened without ever actually seeing what this team was gonna look like on the court. And as soon as we got that glimpse it all came into stark clarity. Oh yeah, these guys are amazing players, that’s right. They’re probably going to win a lot of basketball games this season. In fact this team could be really, really good.

The Nets last won a division title in 2004. The notorious Paul Pierce trade did nothing to help them get over the hurdle and the pressure to succeed is only gonna be heavier now, not to mention the blowback if they don’t. The hope is that they got rid of all their drama last season and that the path is now clear ahead of them to go striding into contention but if they stumble at any point then there’ll be chaos there waiting to pounce. Dealing with the personalities of two of the more difficult/fragile superstar players is tricky. Having a first year head coach in charge of a team expected to make a 10-15 win jump (well, comparative to a normal length season at least) is tough. Keeping some of the guys happy who’ve been big contributors the last few years but who might be marginalised now is tough. Having to potentially trade some of those guys mid-season if they need a tune up ahead of the deadline is also tough.

We recently got a peek at some of that volatility with Kyrie Irving refusing to talk to the media any more... or as he put it on Instagram: “I am here for Peace, Love, and Greatness. So stop distracting me and my team, and appreciate the Art. We move different over here. I do not talk to Pawns. My attention is worth more”.

Whatever you think of the dude’s Third Eye Esoterica (I love it in theory but can’t help but feel most of that good stuff is meant to remove your ego from the equation and he instead uses it to amplify his ego too often), he’s definitely been targetted by the NBA media as a problem child. Particularly the Boston Mafia. Not always been treated fairly in the way he’s represented and you can at least see why he’d be pissed off, even if he does bring a lot of this upon himself. Anyway, he’s broken his silence since and has walked back those comments just as he walked back previous comments about the team not really needing a “head coach” just as he’s walked back many other comments in the past. Amends have been made.

So in the spirit of cleansing, in the spirit of moving forwards, in the spirit of embracing a new era (and in acknowledgement that a lot of that anti-Kyrie bias stems from his messy divorce from the Boston Celtics)...

Kyrie Irving: “It just comes from a lot of native tribes. Just cleanse the energy, want to make sure that we’re all balanced. It’s for us to stay connected and for us to feel good about coming to work.”

Oh mate, you ride the rollercoaster with this fella but when he’s on form he’s truly amazing. What a guy. He reckons he’s gonna burn sage before every single game this season if opposing teams allow him to. Burn on, my son. Burn on.

Yeah righto but what about the rest of them? What about the rotations and the deeper roster and all that? Well when the Nets took on the Celtics in that game it marked Caris LeVert’s first preseason game and thus the first time in any formal situation at all that the Brooklyn Nets had been able to roll out a fully available team since Durant and Irving signed with the franchise 557 days prior.

LeVert played off the bench in that game, which Steve Nash had suggested would mirror the regular season rotation, so it appears he’s looking at Sixth Man of the Year candidacy. That solves one obvious issue of fitting everyone into a starting five. The other one is that we’re likely to see DeAndre Jordan play ahead of Jarrett Allen (boo)... though potentially with similar minutes totals, dunno. Which gives you a starting five that looks like this:

Kyrie Irving | Spencer Dinwiddie | Joe Harris | Kevin Durant | DeAndre Jordan

Caris LeVert will then operate as the main bench scorer. Jarrett Allen & Bruce Brown as bench defenders, one for the frontcourt and one for the backcourt. Landry Shamet supplies a little extra offence in the second unit. And Taurean Prince has the veteran wits. Guys like Tyler Johnson, Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, Nic Claxton & Rodions Kurucs should get some spare minutes too... while hey would you look at that Jeff Green is on this roster!

That’s a really good team even beyond the two big names. Most general managers would do ungodly things for that kinda depth. Joe Harris just signed a big extension and is one of the top three point shooters in the league. Spencer Dinwiddie is a legit creator from the guard position, maybe not the best shooter but a very useful player to have playing off the two stars and he should bail out Kyrie on defence as well. With depth in place they can afford to rest Irving and Durant should the injury niggles re-emerge... about the only thing they’re clearly missing is a stretch forward who can allow them to play small late in games but there are a couple candidates in that group who might step up – including Durant himself. And this team has trade-ability all over it if things get desperate. Heaps of strong players on good contracts.

A top four seeding is the minimum this team should be expecting. Even in year one these Nets should at least be competitive in a second round series, if not pushing all the way for an Eastern Conference title. And if they do then our old mate Sean Marks might suddenly get himself into some Executive of the Year consideration which would be hilarious given how he’s been overlooked for those honours for all the lovely work he’s done to get to this point. With that condensed pressure of trying to be a contending team in the NBA he’ll be working harder than ever this season with the tiniest margins for error... but his powerplay moves were made a year and a half ago. That was when he harnessed the talent. The rest is just figuring it out as he goes.

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