Keep in mind this previous chestnut from Samuel Clemens, higher identified to followers of literature as Mark Twain: “If you happen to don’t just like the climate in New England now, simply wait a couple of minutes.”
If Twain had been a columnist for The New York Submit in 2022, he may be capable to paraphrase himself: “If what Kyrie Irving goes to do/suppose/say … simply wait a couple of minutes.”
Or a couple of months, anyway. Again in April, after the Nets had lined themselves in gory by getting swept out of the NBA playoffs by the Celtics — and now that the playoffs are over, we are able to carve into the document books that Celtics-Nets was the one sweep of the 2022 playoffs — Irving had this to say:
“I don’t actually plan on going wherever.”
He added: “I feel for me, it has all the time been about being snug loving the place I’m at, and I find it irresistible right here. As soon as that summertime hits, I do know that we’ll have some conversations, however there’s no approach I might go away my man 7.”
That may be Kevin Durant, his would-be working companion, with whom he’s run treasured little within the three years since they tried to tilt the capital of professional basketball towards Brooklyn. Within the second, it appeared virtually conciliatory, an acknowledgment that he and Durant (and, presumably, finally, Ben Simmons) have some unfinished enterprise to are inclined to.
Immediately, with the truth of free company every week and a half away, there may be phrase that talks between Irving and the Nets on a contract extension have stalled. This might be true; you must suppose the Nets’ brass, as a minimum, feels compelled to take a protracted and arduous take a look at whether or not it desires to maintain doing enterprise with a participant who — no matter how you're feeling about obligatory vaccinations — willfully sabotaged the Nets’ 2021-22 season.
It might be posturing, and so long as Irving is a part of the equation that's definitely a risk.
What we all know is that this: it's Irving who holds many of the playing cards on this, Irving who owns a participant’s possibility for this 12 months value $36.9 million (which he should train by June 29), Irving who can merely resolve to throw himself again into the open market, a market that would yield him a beginning annual wage in extra of $41 million.
And we all know this, too:
The Nets made their mattress with Irving. They selected him three years in the past, each bit as a lot as Irving selected them, and if it was a obligatory Faustian cut price as a way to corral Durant, too … properly, they both knew that on the time or they had been they solely people on this planet who didn’t. And for the entire complications Irving brings, he's nonetheless solely 30, he's nonetheless in his prime, and he gives the Nets — nonetheless — with their greatest likelihood to make one thing worthwhile out of their 2019 shake-the-world-up blockbuster.
(Let’s take a second to speak about one of many groups now talked about as a attainable vacation spot for Irving, the Knicks. And let’s be very clear: NO. NO. NO. As a lot as they crave a degree guard, that’s the incorrect participant on the incorrect time with the incorrect wage cap quantity and the incorrect solid of would-be teammates. Once more: NO. NO. NO.)
Now, there may be one fixed caveat with the Nets: is Durant nonetheless on board with Irving as his wing man? From the beginning, this has been about Durant, and even within the darkest moments of final season he by no means wavered in his assist of Irving. If that’s modified, all bets are off. If not?
Then the Nets must swallow arduous and maintain the band collectively. Look: it’s really unfair to label the Durant/Irving partnership a failure. Durant missed all of 2019-20 together with his Achilles. The Nets had been rolling within the 2021 playoffs till Irving rolled his ankle. And nonetheless you need to assess blame for the mess of 2021-22, the very fact is Irving was merely by no means totally assimilated into this system. They had been sitting geese for a well-oiled group like Boston, and had been duly (and predictably) slaughtered.
However what if Irving actually does present up this time round? What if we get 65 to 70 regular-season video games with he and Durant (and perhaps 50 with Simmons, too) the place this grand experiment lastly will get a correct likelihood? What if it’s the Nets hitting their stride subsequent April? Joe Tsai and Sean Marks all the time knew they had been taking an opportunity right here. Merely reducing their losses can be a bitter buzzkill.
Irving might current a satan of a dilemma for the Nets. However he’s the satan they know.
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