Inevitable Irving Trade Might Not End Nets’ Headaches As Deadline Approaches

NBA.com

Nets General Manager Sean Marks took the best deal he could get in trading Kyrie Irving to Dallas on Sunday. According to multiple reports, Brooklyn will receive former Nets point guard Spencer Dinwiddie, 3-&-D wing Dorian Finney-Smith, a 2029 first round pick, and two second rounders in exchange for the mercurial superstar guard and buried big man Markieff Morris.

After three-plus seasons of one controversy after another interrupting Irving’s spectacular performances on the court, the Nets had endured enough. Irving’s alleged threat to sit out the remainder of the season until his offseason free agency (though ESPN’s Bobby Marks claimed such a ploy would be illegal under the Collective Bargaining Agreement—my guess, based on his prior success in avoiding playing regular season games, is that Irving would have found a way to claim it was injury related) because he was upset over stipulations during contract extension negotiations was the last straw.

In this case, I believe Marks did better than he did with last year’s superstar meltdown, when the Nets got snookered by Philadelphia into taking a physically and mentally impaired Ben Simmons and his abominable contract as part of acceding to James Harden’s trade request. Dinwiddie and Finney-Smith are capable rotation pieces on a playoff team and the first-rounder is a nice marginal asset to have in Brooklyn’s pocket.       

However, as much as Nets fans desire to breathe a sigh of relief now that their headache has left the building, the consensus opinion, for which I concur, is that this isn’t the end of the chaos surrounding the franchise and that further moves are afoot.

They will come in one of two forms, based on the mood of their remaining superstar Kevin Durant.

Nets fans should stick with their regimen of anxiety pills worrying that KD, who submitted and then rescinded a trade request last offseason, is not on board with this new direction. Durant and Irving, along with freeloading friend DeAndre Jordan, agreed to team up in Brooklyn during the 2019 free agency period. Durant is in the first year of the four-year extension he signed in 2021, presumably under the assumption that the organization would continue its plan to build a championship team around a historically prolific Big 3 with him, Irving, and Harden.

Now Harden and Irving are gone and what’s left is some nice pieces, but no one else who can really share KD’s load as a go-to scorer. Is Durant still on board with that? We don’t know, but it’s interesting that TNT and Bleacher Report expert Chris Haynes tweeted just an hour after the Irving trade was leaked that Phoenix is prepared to pursue Durant should he become available.    

The hope is that KD, who could be a week away from returning from an MCL sprain, is still bought in, based on how the team has been significantly better managed under Head Coach Jacque Vaughn than it was when he was out under predecessors Steve Nash and Kenny Atkinson. Brooklyn has gone 5-7 in his absence and has maintained its top-four standing in the Eastern Conference, though the team is slated for some rough sledding with back-to-back home games against the Clippers and Suns starting on Monday.

The best way for Marks to assuage the 34 year-old KD’s concerns is to double down on the win-now approach with another trade (or two) before the February 9 deadline. As I mentioned in a previous post, it will be difficult because, with the institution of the play-in round, there are so few teams who might think they’re out of it and about 20 organizations who are looking to improve for a postseason run.

For example, I saw Bulls star DeMar DeRozan mentioned in trade rumors—no one knows if Chicago is ready to give up its slot in the play-in round for a package of Joe Harris, salary-cap filler, and some picks, including one protected first-rounder. If they would take Simmons-plus-picks/young players for Zach LaVine, that would be even better. If players of that ilk hit the market, the Nets will have to compete with multiple other bidders. Through it all, Brooklyn remains woefully thin at center, with Nic Claxton the only legitimate 5 capable of playing in games of consequence.

In other words, the Nets are further from title contention than they were before the Irving trade, which isn’t a great place to be when trying to convince their most valuable player to stick around. My gut says that this isn’t what Durant signed up for and that the chaos still isn’t over.