James Harden holds key to Nets championship hopes

 The Brooklyn Nets made a huge splash during the 2019 free agency period by signing Kyrie Irving and and Kevin Durant with fans singing Sean Marks' praises for netting two of the league's premier scorers. While Durant's recovery from his Achilles surgery sidelined him for all of the 2019-2020 campaign, Irving dazzled in just 20 games before knee troubles curtailed his season. 

Now with Marks pulling another rabbit out of the hat by acquiring James Harden from the Rockets, Durant's former teammate and a close friend to Irving holds the key to the franchise's hope of winning its first NBA title and clinching its first finals berth since the 2002-2003 season. Brooklyn's Big Three has played just seven games as a complete trio with a combination of virus protocol, hamstring issues, load management and personal issues all among many reasons the talented stars have missed significant action this season 

Chief among the Nets' concerns is getting Harden back on the court healthy in time to ramp up for the playoffs. It's clear that without the team's true point guard, the Nets have wavered against the upper echelon teams in the league and that was no more obvious than in two straight losses to Milwaukee the past few days. 

The Nets are still many pundits' favorite to come out of the Eastern Conference and capture the franchise's first Larry O'Brien Trophy, but if those dreams are going to be realized, Harden needs to be at full strength and playing at an MVP-level as he during the first half of the season.