The Nets Dumped Steve Nash. Should It Have Been Kyrie Irving?
There’s no question about what happened. There’s no question about who it happened to. It’s just a matter of how much blame is deserved.
The Nets dropped the third overall pick to the Phoenix Suns, then dealt Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Jeff Green and a few others for Paul and Deron Williams. They then lost their final game to fall out of the top three, and their season completely unraveled in the process.
The Nets didn’t care. The Suns hadn’t done a damned thing. The Nets just dumped Steve Nash and his 7-foot center, and they didn’t care one whit about the rest of the team. They simply wanted to make the trade, and they did.
In spite of every bit of evidence to the contrary, the Nets’ fans felt betrayed. They looked at the team and saw a ragtag collection of players who had played together for a few weeks and no longer had any connection between them.
The Nets saw what was happening and did everything they could to save the season. They brought back Danny Granger to play the point guard, they traded Kevin Garnett and Kris Humphries to the Philadelphia 76ers for a player to be named later, they took a big salary dump on Deron Williams, and they kept one of the worst contracts in the league (Nash).
The Nets lost to the Clippers, but they didn’t have what it took to win. The Nets were not good enough. They were not talented enough. They had never been good enough and had not been good since their first season in the league.
And they had one of the worst trades ever.
So why should you care?
The Nets are not the Clippers. The Nets are not the 76ers. They are not the Suns. The Nets, because they are the Nets, are a very, very different team than the one they replaced. I’ve come to the conclusion that many fans and even many experts believe in a different set than “the Nets are the Clippers�