A year ago they were not only the toast of the NBA, but also a model for how things are built in professional sports, how foundations and cornerstones are laid, and how blueprints become blessings.
Starting with an Instagram message from Kevin Durant in the late afternoon of June 30 that spanned most of a festive July, life had never been better for the networks, at least not in their NBA incarnation, not since Julius Erving and his friends tried to tear the basketball city away while loitering in the suburbs swinging a red, white, and blue ball. Durant and Kyrie Irving were in the house, in the herd, and suddenly the nets were in an unfamiliar position to feed the new NBA zeitgeist.
“We knew what we were getting into,” said Sean Marks in Las Vegas a few weeks later.
Maybe they did it. Still, no one could really predict how bizarre the next 12 months would be for the networks. An outstanding fly in the ointment was immediately recognizable: Durant would not be available in 2019-20 thanks to its blown Achilles. While Irving came up with a clean health certificate when he was limited to 20 games (during which the nets went 8-12), thanks to a bum shoulder, which, given its history, wasn’t exactly an amazing development either.
What would have been impossible to imagine last July was all the epic and subtle things and everything in between that littered the landscape of the nets in no particular order at the beginning of another July:
- A global pandemic that has turned everyone’s world upside down.
- The dismissal of trainer Kenny Atkinson on March 7th after leading the nets from the sediment to the playoffs last year, and this time the edge of another berth whose details are somewhat blurry, but due to the fact that Atkinson is at one end was clearly evoked and Durant, Irving, and DeAndre Jordan had stopped believing that they could work together.
- Injuries that cost Caris LeVert (with another great season) 25 games and rookie Nic Claxton all but 15 games.
- Rodion Kurucs striker was arrested for domestic violence.
- A major off-season newcomer Wilson Chandler missed the first 25 games thanks to a PED lockout, barely shot 40 percent of the 35 games he played in, and then decided against the networks’ journey to the Orlando reboot bubble Stay, which seems to be the shortest of the 22 teams that will report there next week every day.
- Last but not least, the corona virus hit the nets worse than anyone else. Four players – Durant the only one whose name we know – tested positive at the start of the lockdown. This week, both Jordan and Spencer Dinwiddie – the most reliable Nets player this year with 20.6 points and 6.8 assists – announced that they too have COVID-19. Jordan is definitely not in Orlando; Dinwiddie wants to play, but said he actually had symptoms (fever, chest tightness) and was almost certainly being driven out.
Besides that…
The networks are almost certainly a wealth of warning messages when sport tries to reintegrate into the world. There are others. The Phillies have been the worst-hit baseball team to date, and the Nationals have already lost two players who they expected to be part of the season – Ryan Zimmerman and Joe Ross – who decided to sign out instead.
The NHL had 15 of the first 250 players tested come back positive and we are still trying to determine what percentage of these things are problematic. Clemson has had 37 soccer players tested positive, and there is a cynical (albeit apocryphal) attitude that has taken root in the sport that soccer factories like this wouldn’t bother if their players rose now, developing herd immunity and being fully loaded for the season (if there is a season).
The nets would be a longshot to do anything in the bubble anyway, since it was announced that both Irving and Durant would remain idle. The other dominoes that fell just made sure they stayed inside as quickly as possible. Most of their eggs were already carefully placed in baskets from 2021, 2022 and 2023.
Until then, it can be almost funny how much quicksand they have experienced in the first 12 months and how many banana peels have tangled their feet. If you’re a Nets fan, look forward to that laugh.
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