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Showing posts with label trending. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trending. Show all posts

Kyrie Irving's latest tweet reveals hope for his Nets' future




For the first time since tweeting an apology for promoting an anti-semitic film, Kyrie Irving's latest tweet is letting fans know that he'll likely be back on the court sooner than later. Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai set forth six steps that Irving needed to take to be reinstated with the club. Assuming Irving satisfied those requirements, he will be eligible to play after serving his five game suspension.

While the tweet doesn't provide complete clarity, it is the clearest indication to date that there is a path forward for Irving with the Nets.

With NBA's planned expansion to Seattle, Las Vegas, will New Jersey get a team back?

 

Photo by Andrew Bernstein

Photo by Andrew Bernstein

Some interesting news has been trickling out of the NBA commoner's office this week as the league may consider expanding into additional cities in the near future.

The Supersonics, who were stationed in Seattle from 1967-2008, could see a revival along with adding a club in the hottest growing market in the country in Las Vegas. 


With both cities being located in the Western market, a realignment of divisions would be in order to create even teams in both conferences.

LeBron James has thrown his hat in the ring and called for dibs on a potential Vegas club, while Adam Silver insists that the expansion still is years away.

The question many fans are wondering that followed the Nets in the Garden State is: what about New Jersey?

The Nets, who were founded in 1967 as the New Jersey Americans and played at the Teaneck Armory, spent one season there before moving to Long Island as the rebranded Nets starting in 1968.



The Nets then returned to Jersey in 1977, where they remained for the next 35 years until the move to Brooklyn in 2012.

The Nets had trouble drawing fans when stationed at the Meadowlands due to a lack of public transportation and area attractions in the swamp. The now -defunct Xanadu project lost funding during the Nets stay at the then-IZOD Center as it sat for years half-developed as an eyesore.

Now, the American Dream mall has been built with countless activities, along with a transit line to send fans to and from Secaucus Junction. All the infrastructure and amenities the Nets were hoping for during their stay in East Rutherford are now up and running.

The IZOD Center is still standing, even though it's not used for concerts or sporting events, just merely, filming for television and movies.

The reality is all the pieces are in place for New Jersey to make a bid for another team in the future. 

The question will remain if the politicians in office, lobbyists and pubic at large will make enough waves and show enough support to get the NBA and Silver's attention. A return of NBA basketball to the Garden State is viable, and a renaissance in the swamp is what many basketball diehards are rooting for and hoping for in the near future.



Nets best ability needs to be availability this season

 


Without making any excuses for Steve Nash, who is entering his third year as Nets head coach, injuries, vaccine compliance and players in and out of the lineup have all been commonplace in Brooklyn since his arrival.

Brooklyn will need to find a happy medium  where it can manage its stars minutes, but build enough cohesion as an overall unit to form a powerful team.

Durant was overtaxed last season without Kyrie Irving for large chunks of the year and then James Harden after he jetted out of town.

The 34 year old Durant will need enough run with new teammates, but enough rest to stay fresh for a playoff push.

 Irving has also shown to be an injury prone player and was a shell of his former self in the playoffs when conditioning and fatigue impacted his performance beyond the play-in game and Game 1 against the Celtics.

The delicate balance will be a challenge for Nash as he'll also have a trio of veterans rehabbing their respective injuries in Joe Harris, Seth Curry and T.J. Warren.

Brooklyn may need to play deep into their bench in the early season until the big guns are fully healthy.

So while Nets fans want to see the fully healthy and committed version of this club playing day in and day out, Nash and Marks will certainly keep an eye on the biggest picture, that being keeping his stars healthy, but conditioned enough to compete for a championship come playoff time.



KD fires back at critics questioning his legendary status

 Be careful what you tweet about Kevin Durant because he might just reply and roast you in front of a massive audience.

The Nets superstar took aim at a few random Twitter accounts nitpicking his place among NBA greats.


The chatter didn't stop there as Durant made a point of putting mere mortals in their rightful place yet again.


Durant is notorious for mixing it up with trolling fans on Twitter and while the Nets' leader is a surefire Hall of Famer, he's not all that thin-skinned when it comes to criticism.

As a public figure in the most esteemed basketball league in the planet, criticism is part of the job description. 


Durant can push back on all the casuals as much as he wants, but his play and the Nets' performance this year is the only thing that will ultimately impact his legacy.

 

Healthy Nets are championship or bust, Steve Nash's job depends on it




Injuries were a major part of why the Brooklyn Nets watched the NBA finals from their comfy sofas at home instead of challenging the Phoenix Suns for league supremacy this past July.

The other part of the equation that led to the Nets going home early was the simple fact that Mike Budenholzer maneuvered and made the proper adjustments to pull his club out of a 2-0 series hole and then an eventual 3-2 deficit.

The Bucks head man, who was rewarded with a lucrative extension this off-season, put to bed the narrative that his playoff coaching was subpar.

If there was a coach whose decisions  left a lot to ponder, that man was sitting on Brooklyn's coaching sidelines, Steve Nash. 

The first year coach looked exactly the part, reticent to trust the bench that spurred the team to 48 regular season wins without the Big Three healthy for the majority of the season.

Shortening rotations in the playoffs in nothing new, but Nash's refusal to dig deep in his bag with the team struggling to find offense outside of Kevin Durant and with Joe Harris misfiring from the outside is still a head scratcher.

Jeff Green was invaluable in Game 5 to help lift the Nets to within one game of the conference finals, but Bruce Brown's minutes shrunk, DeAndre Jordan remained inactive and Nicholas Claxton and Landry Shamet were used sparingly.

Durant was brilliant, but Nash's offense consisted of giving No. 7 the ball and getting the heck out of the way.  Without Kyrie Irving and a hobbled James Harden, the same Nets team that earned the distinction as the most efficient offense in NBA history, didn't resemble anything close to that against Milwaukee.

Sometimes you have to give a tip of the cap to your competition for locking down defensively, but Nash and former assistant Mike D'Antoni didn't do the team any favors by allowing the offense to go full hero ball.

Nash's coaching staff has been rebuilt with Ime Udoka being hired by the Celtics, D'Antoni leaving the organization, and David Vanderpool along with Steve Clifford coming into the fold. 

The reality is, if coaching is a factor for why the Nets come up short this upcoming season, Nash won't be able to survive another playoff exit.



No one roots for Goliath, which is why Nets are NBA's most disliked team by a longshot

 Super teams never seem to settle well with fans. From Miami's big three, to Golden State and now Brooklyn, no one roots for Goliath.

The Brooklyn Nets are fully loaded with a plethora of star talent, but what rubs fans the wrong way about this club?

Is it how James Harden forced his way out of Houston and showed up out of shape and unwilling to play for the franchise?

As for Kevin Durant, was joining a 73-win Warrior team enough to annoy most? How about unceremoniously leaving the Bay Area in the middle of a potential dynasty? Or to add insult to injury, joining forces with Kyrie Irving and Harden in Brooklyn?

Irving all but mailed it in during his time in Boston and showed every inclination to join his childhood team in the Nets and bring a first ever championship to the franchise. 

With a littany of reasons to despise how this Nets team has come together and the polarizing nature of each star's personality, Brooklyn is an easy target for those still drinking the hater-ade.

Whatever the case may be, the collection of basketball prowess Sean Marks somehow collected out of thin air is nothing short of astonishing.

The Nets are the talk of the NBA world and the benchmark by which every other team is measured. 




For the first time in their NBA history, the Nets are the team with the bullseye on their back. 

The club that catches the vitriol and animosity of fans of the other 29 teams, is the odds on favorite for a title. The heavyweights are primed to knockout the competition, much to the chagrin of the viewing public.

Extensions looming for Harden and Irving means scary hours in Brooklyn is here to stay

General manager Sean Marks is normally cold and calculated in his personnel moves and equally guarded when making these machinations public. So, when Marks met with reporters this week and not so subtly hinted that James Harden and Kyrie Irving are engaged in extension talks, and to take it one step f urther, on the verge of agreeing to long-term deals should excite Nets fans.
With the trio of stars in the fold for the foreseeable future, Brooklyn maintains its status as an Eastern Conference powerhouse. Harden and Irving are fully recovered from injuries suffered during the Milwaukee playoff and have revenge on their minds with the regular season two months away.

For health or for country, Durant, Harden commit to Team USA in Tokyo Olympics

Kevin Durant will be turning 33 in September and nearly two and a half years removed from an Achilles injury that many thought might diminish his athleticism and star power significantly. Durant sat out 2019 and returned this past season, despite missing time due to contact tracing and hamstring issues, the Nets star proved to be better than ever during the team's playoff run that was cut short due to injuries.
His main running mate, James Harden battled through a lingering hamstring issue that when reaggravated in Game 1 of the Milwaukee series, caused him to miss three games and it was later revealed that his injury was not merely tightness, but a Grade 2 strain.
So why instead of rehabbing with the training staff in the case of Harden, but also Durant with the mileage on his body following his first full season back from surgery, participating in the Tokyo Olympics? The simple answer in the love for the game and the pride in representing their country on the world stage. In reality, Nets fans will have a great deal of agita watching their two-star players lay it on the line this summer. Meanwhile, Kyrie Irving is not expected to play for Team USA coming off a serious ankle sprain. The Nets championship dreams fell short of expectations, and the health of the big three will be a major contributing factor into whether the team can fulfill its goals next season.

Harden reveals what everyone already knew, he was a lot more hurt than Nets let on

James Harden was essentially playing on one leg in Games 5,6, and 7, but he gave it his al nonetheless. Following the Game 7 loss, Harden told reporters that he had a Grade 2 hamstring strain with a normal recovery time of 4-6 weeks. Harden took barely a fraction of that time to heal the injury before charging back to provide a lift in Game 5 despite not scoring a single point.
With each subsequent game, Harden looked to be moving more freely and scored 16 points in Game 6 and 22 in Game 7. Even so, Brooklyn's hobbled star faced an uphill battle to get anywhere back to full strength even if the Nets advanced past the Bucks. Kyrie Irving was seen limping along the sidelines during Game 7 and the prospect of him playing in the next round was doubtful at best. A second round exit was a bitter pill to swallow for all Nets'fans, but the reality is, health was not on their side and the Nets big 1.5 faced an uphill climb to advance deeper into the playoffs with their star players suffering from significant injuries.

Basketball Gods not on Nets' side as injuries derail Brooklyn's title hopes

The Nets faced their fair share of adversity this season, but injuries and a championship worthy Buck team proved to be too much to overcome in the end.
It's easy to question Steve Nash's strange rotations or how he leaned too heavily on Kevin Durant's 1-on-1 prowess on the offensive side, but injuries didn't allow the Nets to advance beyond the semifinal round. Brooklyn had its big three together for merely nine regular season games and five playoff games with a combination of hamstring injuries, ankle ailments and contact tracing keeping the team's top stars from staying on the court. Winning an NBA championship you nehealt mainingredients: talen and luck. Brooklyn was undoubtedly the most talented team in the league throughout the year, but luck was not on its side. The Nets are forced to regroup, surround Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving with complimentary pieces and have another go at it with the hopes of staying healthy and whole throughout next year's campaign.

Questionable coaching, lack of bench support doom Nets in painful Game 7 loss

Steve Nash is a rookie coach and he looked every bit the part in the Brooklyn's gut wrenching 115-111 overtime defeat to Milwaukee in Game 7.
The Nets snatched victory from the jaws of defeat with an otherworldly jumper from Durant to send the game to the extra session. The Nets star's foot just touched the line on the attempt and came within millimeters of becoming the go ahead basket with one second left.
Alas, it wasn't meant to be as Steve Nash tightened his rotations unfathomably to dole out just 20 minutes to his bench of Jeff Green and Landry Shamet who scored no points. Durant scored 48 in 53 minutes, while James Harden had 22 in the same amount of runtime. Nash wanted to ride or die with his big guns, but both were gassed and had nothing left in the tank in overtime. Joe Harris struggled again from the outside missing two wide open 3-pointers down the stretch and managed just ten points. The Nets turn their attention to next year as they consider extensions for the big three, hope Nash continues to grow as a neophyte coach, and rebuild a bench that came up short in the series.

No Sleep Till Brooklyn, Nets bank on home court to carry them to Game 7 win

It's all in the line on Thursday night with the Brooklyn Nets needing a win in the friendly confines of Barclays Center to advance to the conference final round. The undermanned, banged up, and at times disjointed Nets wouldn't even be in this position if not for the otherworldly play of Kevin Durant and the gutsy nature of James Harden to push through his injury.
The Nets were 28-8 in the regular season in Brooklyn and 6-0 during this playoff run, illustrating the positive impact the crowd has made on the team's play. Despite winning Game 5 in Brooklyn, the Nets fell in an early hole and have been prone to slow starts throughout the series. Brooklyn will need to get the home crowd involved early and often if it hopes to survive against the Bucks and face the winner of the Sixers, Atlanta series.
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