Kyrie Irving bolted Boston for Brooklyn, and Kevin Durant left Golden State to join him.
Now, the Warriors are back in yet another NBA Finals, while the Celtics enter Sunday’s Game 7 in Miami with a chance to join them. Meanwhile, Irving, Durant and the Nets have been on vacation for over a month, swept out of the playoffs in the first round and nowhere close to contention.
What looked like a surefire champion in the making has produced two first-round exits and a second-round ouster, just a lone playoff series win in three seasons. But sometimes things just don’t go as planned. It’s called life.
Of course, there are obvious reasons. Durant missing his first Nets campaign with a ruptured Achilles suffered in the 2019 Finals with Golden State. Irving and James Harden’s injures in last season’s Eastern Conference semis vs. Milwaukee. And of course Irving’s refusal to get a COVID-19 vaccine that cost him most of this season and led to a sweep against his former team.
But the facts are that former team has rebounded from losing Irving just fine, just a win away from the Finals.
And Durant left the league’s most stable and consistent dynasty since Michael Jordan’s Bulls to come to Brooklyn. Left Steph Curry for Irving, whose vaccine refusal cost him 53 games this season and may have cost the Nets a legitimate shot at a title in a window that — while it’s not closed — is finite.
Just ask the Oklahoma City team that went to their only NBA Finals in 2012 with a young Big Three consisting of future MVPs Durant, Harden and Russell Westbrook. All were 24 or younger, but they lost in the Finals and never got back.
Or ask the Celtics that reached the 2018 Eastern Conference Finals with Irving leading Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown but couldn’t duplicate it the next year and saw Irving leave in free agency.
It seemed…