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Nets will get last laugh after 2014 trade debacle with C's

The Brooklyn Nets are closer to an NBA championship than the Boston Celtics, much closer. That's not opinion, that's fact. When the Nets dealt valuable, unprotected draft capital to Boston for two over the hill future Hall of Famers, Celtics fans refused to let Billy King and the Nets live it down.
The next six-plus years was littered with Celtic fan commentary bashing that Nets regime and mocking the future of the team. Brooklyn was heading down a fruitless path and after cutting bait with King in 2016, Sean Marks made all the right moves to rebuild the team's culture and identity. The groundwork laid by Marks paved the way for the historic free agency period that saw Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant join forces in Brooklyn. A disgruntled James Harden wiggled his way out of Houston upon seeing what the Nets were building with two of his closest off the court friends and thus the current Nets Big Three era was born.

Kyrie Irving ready to remind Celtics fans exactly what they're missing

Kyrie Irving's unceremonious departure from the Celtics didn't settle well with fans of the Green and White. A trade with Cleveland that was met with so much promise and anticipation ended with bitter disappointment and a less than enthused version of Irving looking disinterested in basketball at times in Boston.
Signing with his childhood team, the Nets, has somewhat reinvigorated the enigmatic point guard's zest for the game, but he's still had episodes and instances this season of putting basketball on the backburner for short periods of time. Now on the verge of the franchise's best opportunity to win its first NBA title, the Nets have a chance to make the nightmarish trade orchestrated by Billy King is 2014 that saw unprotected draft picks fly out the door for aging stars Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce just a distant memory. Celtics fans will be subjected to inspired and likely devastating play by their former savior and Brooklyn has a chance to flip the script by making Boston the butt of its jokes for once.

Nets will be on upset alert in playoff matchup with Celtics

The Brooklyn Nets won't have an easy path through the Eastern Conference as they'll tangle with the Boston Celtics starting this Saturday at Barclays Center in the first round.
Boston has made three conference finals in the last four seasons and is not a typical first round opponent for the two-seeded Nets. The Celtics stumbled into the play-in tournament and Jaylen Brown's season-ending wrist injury was yet another blow to a disappointing campaign for the Nets' Atlantic division rival. Brooklyn is getting healthy at the right time, but they can be sure that Brad Stevens will make life difficult for the Nets' stars to shine brightest as their bench play will go a long way in determining the outcome of the series. The Nets won all three regular season meetings with Boston without their three stars playing together, but the coaching advantage is clearly in the Celtics corner.

New York media lauds Knicks, Nets just an afterthought locally

If you listen to sports talk radio or peruse a local newspaper or website in the New York market, you'd think the New York Knicks were the favorites to win the Larry O'Brien trophy. Instead, that distinction goes to the Brooklyn Nets. As local media outlets fawn over the Knicks' first playoff appearance since 2013, Tom Thibodeau will never have to buy a meal again in the Big Apple after the job he's done with the previously happless franchise. Steve Nash earns little respect for inheriting a loaded squad, while remarkably Sean Marks has not been listed as the favorite for NBA executive of the year. The Nets are a long, long way from reaching the popularity of the Knicks, and that's no more evident than by the fact their historic season has been overshadowed by the Renaissance taking place at MSG. The trio of Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant and James Harden will not live down anything short of winning a title this season as detractors are wishing and praying for the other shoe to drop. As both franchises prepare for the start of the 2021 playoffs, the Knicks are a cute feel good story to local media in New York, but as far as the national media landscape, the Nets will draw the most fan interest and intrigue in the weeks to follow.

James Harden, Kevin Durant marvel at Kyrie Irving's 50-40-90 feat on Twitter

Social media shoutouts do a mind and body right and both Kevin Durant and James Harden weren't shy in letting the world know just how special Kyrie Irving's achievement of a 50-40-90 season statline exactly is. In 74 games played over two seasons with the Nets, Irving is also the franchise leader in points per game at 27.0.
While Durant was the talk of the town during last year's free agency frenzy and Harden during this year's trade deadline, Irving has compiled a historic season with regard to not only the franchise, but the league overall. Meanwhile, Brooklyn will be resting up and await the winner of Tuesday night's play-in game between the Celtics and Wizards.

Kyrie Irving becomes first Net to join 50-40-90 club

Only eight players in NBA history have ever shot at least 50 percent from the field, 40 percent from 3-point range and 90 percent from the free throw line in a single season, and Kyrie Irving's 2020-2021 campaign was good enough to join that elite company. Brooklyn's point guard-turned shooting guard, has quietly enjoyed a historic year in only his second season with the franchise.
Irving, Kevin Durant, and James Harden have been rewriting all the Nets record books, but the stat that Nets fans young and old care about most is postseason success. Brooklyn will await the winner of the Boston versus Washington seventh versus eighth seed matchup as part of the NBA's play-in tournament. Again, the Nets superstars are stuffing the statsheet, but the real measure of this group's success will lie in whether it can deliver the franchise's first NBA championship.

Nets set new single season NBA franchise record for winning percentage in 123-109 win over Cavs

The last time The Nets boasted a winning percentage over .600, Jason Kidd was running point and the team would clinch its first of back-to-back NBA finals appearances. At a record of 50-32 back in 2001-2002, that .634 winning percentage held up for nearly 20 seasons.
Now, with their big three only playing eight games as a complete unit, and Steve Nash using 38 different starting lineups, the Nets clinched a 48-24 record and .666 winning percentage for the season. The NBA regular season was shortened from 82 games to 72 games and the Nets still reached unprecedented heights by climbing to 24 games over .500 for the first time in their NBA franchise history.
In their ABA days, led by Julius Erving, the Nets went 55-29 in both the 1973-1974 season and 1975-1976 season and in both those campaigns they won the ABA finals. In 1974-1975, the Nets went a franchise-best 58-26, but fell short in the first round of the playoffs to the Spirits of St. Louis
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