Durant, Irving trades signal end of an empty era for Nets

NEW YORK(AP) — James Harden arrived in Brooklyn and predicted hispartnership with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving would be“scary hours.”

It was overin a New York minute.

Not justthat trio, but an entire era in Brooklyn.

It ended soquickly, in fact, that when Harden returns to Brooklyn on Saturdayfor the first time in the regular season, barely a year after hewas traded to Philadelphia, he won’t findeitherDurantorIrvingwaiting.

Now they’regone. Three superstars came, and one by one asked to be traded.

“So itdidn’t work,” general manager Sean Marks said. “Some of that isthrough things we can control and that we can’t control.”

Durant wasthe last to leave, traded to Phoenix on Thursday. Irving was dealtto Dallas just days earlier.

Those twofriends had decided to come to Brooklyn together in 2019. Hardenjoined them early in the 2020-21 season after a trade.

Durant andHarden had combined for seven scoring titles. All three wereperennial All-Stars. The Nets were favored to finally win thechampionship they’ve been chasing since joining the NBA.

“We hadJames and we were supposed to be this super team,” Irving said. “Weplayed very limited time together and there were a lot of injuriesand things that took place. I would have liked to see that work forthe long term, but there are no mistakes, no coincidences.”

Nor wasthere anything close to a championship.

There wereillness and injuries, so sometimes they just couldn’t play.

In Irving’scase, sometimes he just wouldn’t.

The bottomline is Durant, Irving and Harden played just 16 games together,winning one playoff series.

“We’ve hada lot of frustration here with not being able to get that group onthe court consistently and seeing what it really looks like,” Markssaid. “I think that’s one of the biggest frustrations, where wereally didn’t see them and what they could look like.”

It lookedawesome at its peak. The Nets rolled past Boston in five games inthe first round of the 2021 playoffs and overpowered Milwaukee inthe first two games of the Eastern Conference semifinals.

But Hardenstrained his hamstring early in that series and Irving sprained hisankle in Game 4. The Bucks would rally and win the series with anovertime victory in Game 7 in Brooklyn and go on to win thechampionship.

The Netsfigured to be favorites again in 2021-22, but the season wasderailed right from the preseason when Irving refused to getvaccinated against the coronavirus. That meant he was ineligible toplay in home games and the Nets at first said he wouldn’t play atall until he could play in all their games.

Eventually,they brought him back in January to play on the road, but by thenHarden had become disillusioned. He asked out and the Nets sent himto the 76ers in a deal that brought back Ben Simmons on Feb. 10,2022.

After theywere swept in the first round by Boston, Durant asked to be traded,frustrated in part by the Nets’ 5-16 record while he was sidelinedby a sprained knee ligament. Around the same time, the Nets wererefusing to give Irving a contract extension, having grown toquestion his reliability and forcing him to opt into the final yearof his deal.

Duranteventually withdrew that, but they couldn’t convince him to stayonce Irving asked to be traded last week and the Nets quicklyaccommodated the point guard. Marks didn’t want to say if Durant’sdesire to leave was due to Irving’s departure.

“I don’twant to speak for the guys that are no longer here and why theyleft,” Marks said.

The Netsstill have a chance to be a playoff team. They are 33-22, fifth inthe East, having gotten as high as second after ripping off an 18-2stretch earlier this season when Durant and Irving enjoyed perhapstheir best run together.

MikalBridges and Cam Johnson from Phoenix, and Spencer Dinwiddie andDorian Finney-Smith from Dallas all should fit well with the Nets’style of play under Jacque Vaughn and strengthen the teamdefensively. The draft picks they acquired along with them willprovide options to shape the roster.

But italmost always takes having superstars on the roster to win an NBAtitle. The Nets had three.

“For thelast couple of years, we have been a team that you could have saidif things go right — health, whatever, consistency, continuity onthe court — they have a chance to win a championship, you know,purely from talent,” Marks said.

Those days,and now Durant and Irving, are gone.

“They’retaking their talents elsewhere,” Marks said, “and like all otherbasketball fans, we’ll be watching from afar. But our focus now isthe guys in the locker room.”