Sean Marks rebuilt the Nets from the ashes of the prior regime’s ill-fated megadeal only to go all-in with an audacious bid of his own. While the GM won’t call it Finals-or-bust for Brooklyn, he admits his team has the talent to get there — if it can get all that talent on the same page.
“I don’t want to get into what’s a failure and what’s not. Everybody knows what this team is positioned and capable of potentially doing,” said Marks. “Now we’ve got to get everybody jelling, everyone on the same page. I don’t know if that takes two games, 10 games, 20 games, whatever it is — but there’s certainly the talent there.”
Adding James Harden to Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving creates the NBA’s only legitimate Big 3. It’s the league’s first since LeBron James’ Cavs or Heat teams, both of which eventually won titles. It also created tons of questions.
Will the Nets be deep enough? Will they defend enough? Will they share enough and sacrifice enough? And why now?
“The timing was right,” Marks said. “This was something that came around relatively quickly, sped up very fast. But at the end of the day, it goes back to when you have the opportunity to add James Harden to your roster you’re certainly going to do your due diligence and do everything you possibly can to make that happen.”
What the Nets did was gut their vaunted depth. But with star power like this, Marks should be able to fill in around the edges.
Defense will be an issue, but dominant offense helps when foes have to take ball out of the net. The 2018 Warriors won despite being 11th in Defensive Rating and the Cavs won two years earlier ranked 10th. Cleveland made the 2017 and ’18 Finals ranked 21st and 29th, respectively. The Nets could follow that path.
But to do so, they’ll need to be an offensive machine — which means three stars accustomed to having the ball in their hands must share for the greater good. The Nets will have to put hope in the fact that all are self-aware and see the need for compromise.
“I actually never had to bring it up with anyone, because they were the ones to bring it up right off the bat, which was they want to win,” said Marks. “That’s all I heard from James is ‘I want to win, I’m all about winning.’
“At the end of the day, that’s what we need to hear and that’s the level of sacrifice as these guys know. And each one of these guys we know is capable of leading a team, being the star player on a team. And there’ll be nights when each one has that opportunity — maybe two, maybe all three have that opportunity on any night.”
When we see all three together is unclear because of Irving’s status, but Harden and Durant could be on the court together as soon as Saturday night’s game against the Magic. Marks said Harden is in New York and ready to take a physical. As soon as every player in the deal passes a physical, Harden is clear to suit up. If not Saturday, expect to see him Monday against the Bucks.
This season, Durant’s Usage Rate is 30.9, Irving’s 29.3 before his personal leave and Harden down to 28.9 — his lowest since 2013-14.
Harden’s isolations have dropped from 14.1 possessions to just six, and his assist ratio (30 per 100 possessions) and assist-to-turnover ratio (2.44) are both the best of his career. As poor as his defense and his decorum were in forcing his way out of Houston, there are signs he’ll be willing to share.
“I spoke to Ky and Kevin as this was going down, getting their thoughts and really wanting to hear what their commitment was going to be, what their conviction for this was. And I know [owner] Joe Tsai had the same conversations. So from multiple levels, I enjoyed hearing that conviction,” Marks said.
“Whenever you’re meshing personalities we’ve got to wait and see how this fits. These guys have given us the right answers; they’ve said they want to play together, they can see this fitting. They understand there’s without a doubt going to be nights where one or two need to sacrifice for the other. But they’re looking for a common goal. We’re all looking for that common goal: To be the last team standing.”
FiveThirtyEight gave them just a 2 percent chance before the deal, behind eight other teams. Today they’re at 16 percent, trailing only the Lakers. Be that last team standing, and it will all be worth it.