Nets Insider Videos


Knicks on verge of something Nets' Big three never achieved

 


The New York Knicks defeated the Indiana Pacers 121-91 to take a 3-2 edge in the Eastern Conference semi-finals on Tuesday night. 

The series will turn back to Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indiana for Game 6 with the Knicks looking to close it out. 

The Knicks have not been to the Eastern Conference Finals since 1999.

 In that lockout shortened 50 game regular season, the Knicks advanced as the number 8th seed all the way to the NBA finals.  

They eventually fell in five games to the San Antonio Spurs. 

That feels like a lifetime ago, but the Nets best chance at a championship feels like yesterday. 

Even with Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden, the Brooklyn Nets never even reached an Eastern Conference Finals. 

In fact, the last time the Nets were in the Eastern Conference Finals was in 2003 when they were making their second of consecutive runs to the NBA Finals.

Not since the team relocated to Brooklyn to start the 2012-13 season have the Nets advanced past the second round of the playoffs.

Meanwhile, a Knicks squad without Julius Randle, OG Anunoby and Bojan Bogdanovic is doing something that a super team in Brooklyn could not achieve. 

It goes to show that togetherness, grit and hustle go just as far, if not farther than talent.

Durant, Harden and Irving had plenty of talent, but were sorely lacking in the intangible area of leadership. 

Barclays Center is early quiet while Madison Square Garden rocking between the Knicks and Rangers playoff runs this spring.

The Nets better regroup in short order because this Knicks core isn't going anywhere anytime soon. 

Like Kidd before him, Carter will not be enshrined in Basketball HOF as a Net

 


It's almost indisputable that Jason Kidd's most productive years were with the New Jersey Nets. The same can be said for Vince Carter. 

When Kidd was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2018, he was  enshrined as a Maverick. Yes, the team that drafted him and he won a championship with as a secondary star.

Carter will also be going into the Hall with the team that drafted him, the Toronto Raptors.

When Air Canada left Toronto, there was much vitriol from the Raptors fan base.

So why is it that two all-time Nets will be memorialized in Springfield, Massachusetts, with another franchise? 

It likely has a lot to do with the Nets running away from their history. Upon the move to New Jersey, the Nets did a terrible job of honoring the Long Island era of basketball. The same can be said upon the move to Brooklyn, when the Nets tried to treat the relocation as a rebranding of a new franchise. 

As the years go on, and the Nets are further and further away from those back-to-back NBA finals berths. Some of the great moments and legends of those years are being forgotten about. 

The Nets public relations staff has done an extremely underwhelming job of welcoming in former alumni and spearheading initiatives to honor the team's history. 

The Nets have finally reportedly decided to retire Vince Carter's number, which is something that is years and years overdue. 

So while there may be some some hard feelings from Nets fans that wanted to see Carter and Kidd with New Jersey Nets gear in Springfield, the organization is as much to blame as anyone.  Sadly, there is not a single player, coach or executive enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame as a Net. 

 

Brooklyn Nets tease retiring Vince Carter's No. 15

 


It's about damn time. The Brooklyn Nets are late to the party, better late than never.

Soon to be Hall of famer Vince Carter will have his name enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame this summer. 

Carter is an all-time legend, but somehow the Nets organization has waited all this time to lift his No. 15 into the rafters. 

This latest tweet by the Brooklyn Nets indicates that a retirement ceremony could be in the offing. 



Carter has already announced, despite his unceremonious departure from Toronto, that he will go into the Hall of Fame as a Raptor.

Perhaps if the Nets were a little more proactive and retired his number and honored one of the franchise's greats sooner, he may have gone in as in New Jersey Net.

While this will be a bittersweet moment for the part-time YES analyst, many Nets fans have been hoping for this day for many years.

As has been the case throughout Nets history, they've been a day late and a dollar short on many occasions. At least Carter will get the tribute he deserves for some terrific years during the New Jersey Nets era. 


 

Just like in GS, BKLYN , KD shows no leadership in PHX

 


Kevin Durant is not a leader. Plain and simple: when things get tough, there's zero accountability from him. 

That's why when he formed a big three in Brooklyn alongside Kyrie Irving and James Harden, things fell apart. Both Irving and Harden accept zero responsibility when things go sideways. 

It's either changing area codes or changing coaches, not looking in the mirror for these mercurial stars. 

It makes sense why Durant would want to play with two players with similar characteristics to his own. Devin Booker and Bradley Beal fit that mold as well. 

Now in his second not even full season in Phoenix, the Suns just hired their third coach,  championship winning one at that, and dismissed him after only one season.

Monty Williams was fired after a very successful run with the Suns including an NBA finals appearance in 2021.

They are now rumblings that Durant has not exactly ingratiated himself to teammates in Phoenix.

This dream big three they formed out in the Valley is going the same way as things went in Brooklyn. More drama and dysfunction than achievement. 

It's kind of sad in a way to see how Durant's legacy will be tainted after his last few seasons, but he has nobody to blame but himself and his ring chasing ways. 

Maybe if he spent less time trying to pull strings behind the scenes and play general manager and coach, he might form a closer bond with his teammates and develop some leadership skills that are sorely lacking. 

Celts beating Cavs means Mitchell to Nets more likely

 


The Brooklyn Nets fanbase is in a tough spot. If it roots for the Boston Celtics to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are one step closer to winning a championship. 

Both players were selected with the draft picks that the Nets sent out to Boston in the trade for Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Jason Terry. 

So that's not an ideal outcome for Brooklyn. The only good byproduct of that, is that Cleveland would face another early playoff round exit and Donovan Mitchell could grow impatient with his lack of supporting cast with the Cavs. 

Mitchell has been a name that has been linked to both the Nets and the Knicks. Mitchell's father was a long-time public relations staffer with the New York Mets and his son still wears his Amazin's fandom on his sleeve. 

A New York homecoming for Mitchell would be a great narrative. However, the logic in joining a rudderless team in a Brooklyn Nets squad after either an Eastern Conference Championship berth or NBA Finals berth wouldn't make much sense. 

So, Nets fans actually need to be Celtic fans if they have any glimmer of hope that Mitchell will leave Cleveland as soon as this off season. 

So rather than losing him for nothing next off-season as he only has one more year on his contract, Cleveland may look to shop Mitchell this summer. 

The Nets would be among many teams. interested in trading for the five-time All-Star and perhaps the favorites with Mikal Bridges and Cam Thomas looking for a true superstar to co-star with. 

Houston cashes in on No. 3 overall pick in Harden trade to Nets

 


When the Brooklyn Nets traded a boatload of draft picks to the Houston Rockets in January of 2021 for James Harden, they thought it would be a finishing piece to a championship team. 

Nearly 3 and 1/2 years later, the Nets are without a championship, without their own draft picks for the 2024 NBA Draft, and Houston was awarded with the number three overall pick, via Brooklyn.

The Nets took a gamble but it did not pay off. Harden played 80 games in Nets uniform, and his tenure was marred by injury and locker room dysfunction. 

While most pro scouts believe this is a particularly weak draft class, the Nets not holding a single pick is less than ideal for a club that is looking to build for the future. 

Representing the Rockets at the 2024 NBA Draft Lottery was none other than Ime Udoka, a former assistant with the Nets under Steve Nash, and a coach that was finalizing a deal to become Brooklyn's next head coach in 2022.

After Kyrie Irving promoted a film with anti-semitic tropes via his Instagram and Udoka was dismissed from the Celtics due to improper workplace conduct, it was reported both the Nets and the NBA came together to nix the idea in light of all the controversy swirling about. 

The Nets will always be linked to their first big three trade with Boston that netted the Celtics Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Now they'll find out who the Rockets will take with the trade that will always link them to James Harden landing with the Nets. 



Bud's eight figure per year contract with Suns shows It was too costly for Nets



 The Brooklyn Nets are a big market team and were a free agent and trade destination going back only a couple of seasons.

Sean Marks opened up the checkbook to sign both Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant to max deals and he emptied the draft cupboard to acquire James Harden. 

Marks, at the request of both of his stars, fired multiple coaches, eating dead salary in all instances. 

Joe Tsai and the Nets hiked season ticket prices by an average of $144 per ticket in the 2022 season, even after trading away James Harden. 

Reportedly, 30 percent of season ticket holders walked away the following season. Then, both Irving and Durant skipped town. 

Barclays Center attendance figures have been rock solid, but one look around the arena and it's clear it's filled with more tourists, casual NBA fans and opposing fans, than Nets fans.

This was the same criticism the Nets faced when playing at the Meadowlands without any mass transit options and outside of New York City.

The Brooklyn Nets are facing an identity crisis and there was one proven head coach with championship experience that could have turned things around in short order. 

That man, Mike Budenholzer, was among the finalists for the Nets job along with Jordi Fernandez and Kevin Young. Ultimately, the Nets financial situation- money tied up in dead contracts and players that don't play in the case of Ben Simmons- precluded them from signing Budenholzer. 

The former Milwaukee Bucks head man received a 5-year, $50 million-plus dollar deal to try to figure out the mess in Phoenix with Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal and Devin Booker. 

Brooklyn took a shot in the dark with a heralded assistant coach with more questions than answers. 

While Budenholzer was head and shoulders above any candidate on the free agent coaching market, it became clear that Tsai was unwilling to dole out an eight figure per year payday given the mess that Brooklyn's former superstars left behind. In fact, Tsai is finalizing a minority sale to members of the Koch family for up to a 15 percent stake in the club with no clear path to majority ownership at this point.

If one thing is clear from the history of the Nets, the nomadic franchise with a rotating carousel of owners, anything is possible as far as ownership changes are concerned and relocation. 


 

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)