Irving and Kevin Durant joined the Nets as free brokers earlier than the 2019-20 season to kind one of many extra dynamic tandems within the league. Durant is among the league’s smoothest scorers, and Irving is probably its greatest ballhandler. They every had championship expertise and appeared poised, talent-wise, to convey the Nets a title.
However there have been questions and considerations from the beginning. Durant tore his Achilles’ tendon within the 2019 N.B.A. finals whereas taking part in for the Golden State Warriors, and he sat out his first season in Brooklyn. Irving, in the meantime, appeared in simply 20 video games earlier than having season-ending shoulder surgical procedure.
The next season, the Nets made one other splash by buying James Harden from the Houston Rockets in a three-team commerce. However Irving missed a number of video games for unspecified private causes, and through one of many stints when he was away from the workforce, video surfaced of him attending his sister’s party with no masks, in violation of the N.B.A.’s coronavirus protocols. Within the Japanese Convention semifinals, Irving sprained his proper ankle in opposition to the Milwaukee Bucks and the Nets misplaced the sequence in seven video games.
The drama, although, was simply starting. Earlier than the beginning of the 2021-22 season, the Nets issued Irving an ultimatum after he declined to be vaccinated for Covid-19: Get the shot, or keep dwelling. Irving missed 35 video games earlier than the Nets reversed their coverage, which cleared Irving to play in street video games. He was capable of play in dwelling video games almost three months later when Mayor Eric Adams repealed a vaccine mandate for skilled athletes and performers working in New York Metropolis.
However Harden was passed by then, having joined the Philadelphia 76ers in a midseason commerce. The Nets went on to get swept by the Boston Celtics within the first spherical of the playoffs. Within the wake of that catastrophe, Durant requested a commerce however rescinded it earlier than the beginning of this season.
Irving had a participant possibility for this season, and it was unclear virtually till the deadline in June whether or not he would decide in. After weeks of hypothesis that he could be making an attempt to pressure a commerce, Irving introduced that he was in for this season in any case.
“Regular folks hold the world going, however those that dare to be totally different lead us into tomorrow,” Irving stated in a press release on the time. “I’ve made my determination to decide in. See you within the fall.”