As my teammate Howard Beck mentioned in his column, there is plenty of blame to go around for Brooklyn’s wild flameout this season.
So much of it starts with Kyrie Irving’s … shot selection, so to speak. That, and the team’s wavering stance about whether Irving would be allowed to take a part-time stance as he chose not to get vaccinated, seemingly bled into Harden’s reasoning for wanting out of Brooklyn while Durant was injured. And then after Harden was moved for Simmons, Simmons in turn failed to play a single second for the Nets this season. Nash wasn’t dealt a great hand, but he was slow to adjust in the series against Boston. Then there is Brooklyn’s management, which employs (or employed) all of those folks, and made the choice to bring them in.
And while it is certainly not Durant’s fault that things played out the way they did—well, maybe some of it, since he started getting in his own head about Boston’s double teams until Game 5—I don’t think it’s too early to start wondering what his endgame is here.
