NBA The domino effect that led Brooklyn to redo its staff in recent years
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Lthe Brooklyn net they are the sensational team of the NBA season. Joining Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden allows them to have three of the best players in the league, That in their last healthy season they were among the top 10 teams in the league (Harden was first team All NBA, Kyrie and KD in the second), and that they wouldn’t have gotten to Brooklyn if Nick Young hadn’t cheated on Iggy Azalea.
S, they read well, but before that we need to talk about the precarious situation in which the Nets were in the middle of the decade, as various memes have reflected on social media.
The team’s former duo, the Russian Mikhail Prokhorov, Was done with the team in May 2010. Looking for stars for the new arena I was going to build in Brooklyn, not tempting the heart nor sparing resources for it. It was done with Deron Williams on the deadline for changes for first rounds in 2011 and 2013 and two players). In the summer of 2012 he acquired Joe Johnson for 5 players and their first round of 2013, and in July 2013 sent to the Celtics 4 players and first-round picks in 2014, 2016 and 2018, as well as an option to change places in 2017, By Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce. Selections made and made to choose James Young, Jaylen Brown, Markelle Fultz and Collin Sexton, the last 3 top 8 for the Brooklyn ‘super team’ to only be one together at 13/14, As Pierce left for Washington at the end of the season.
For the 15/16 only Joe Johnson remained, Which was cut in February of this campaign, is that the Nets had one of the worst teams in the league, only one series won in the Playoffs and no options for the future to still have several selections in Boston.
Is that the Nets decided to do their ‘Process’, much less publicity than the 76ers because it didn’t serve them to lose ‘on purpose’ like the Sixers because their selections in the Draft weren’t really theirs. So they don’t mind reducing the nmina i with the space in the salary cap, they became partners to receive heavy contracts in changes among other teams and, to find this inconvenience, began to recover selections from the Draft, Including one in 2017 with which they will choose Jarrett Allen. This is where ‘Swaggy P’, Nick Young, enters the scene. Yes, the same of one of the most popular memes on the internet.
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The guard was then in the Lakers, another of the worst teams in the NBA in the middle of the decade, and got into trouble because his then teammate D’Angelo Russell, in the middle of his second year in the NBA, Ventil that Young was cheating on his then girlfriend, rapper Iggy Azalea.
Russell was separated from the plantl for the last games of the season and the team no longer wanted him. They change him in Brooklyn in the summer alongside Timofey Mozgov’s contract for Brook Lopez and a first-round pick who ended up being Kyle Kuzma. Oh eat a domino effect that ended in the new Big Three.
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In July, the Nets were made with a first round of 2018. At the 2018 change deadline they were made with two second rounds, in the summer of 2018 another second round and a first round of 2019, and in the summer of 2019 another first round of 2020.
And the most amazing: the team, with unknown players and a Russell at the All-Star Game, reached the Playoffs two years in a row. Selections resurtieron in the Draft and counted on space in the salary limit, besides the attractiveness to play in New York. They were expected to be protagonistas in the most anticipated free agency in years, that of 2019, And go they were protagonists.
They started by signing Kyrie Irving, Who left Boston after two seasons of turmoil. Russell was given a contract extension to make a signing and transfer move with the Warriors by Kevin Durant, Sending one of their first round selections acquired in previous years and two more players.
With Durant out all season 19/20 after to break the Achilles tendon in the 2019 Finals and going with Kyrie on board, they knew they weren’t going to be contenders. They reached the Playoffs again despite having several injuries, Including Kyrie, i the opportunity came to take on Harden last week, Which they achieved using several of the young players they had (Caris LeVert, Jarrett Allen, Taurean Prince and Rodions Kurucs), also sending Houston their first round selection in 2022, 2024 and 2026, as well as four possible changes of position in 2021, 2023, 2025 and 2027, although the one of 2021 hardly is going to have a better position in the Draft that the Rockets.
One detail: they have Durant, Kyrie and Harden under contract only this season and next, With player options for the 22/23. They go all out for the title in the near future, but there is also a risk that KG, Pierce, Deron and Joe Johnson will return to the post stage because they used all their picks from almost the entire decade to sign.
A radical change in three years. From the worst team in the league to one of the contenders for the title and that the first piece to activate the domino effect was D’Angelo Russell revealing Nick Young’s infidelities. This League …