It’s funny, isn’t it?
A few years ago the Nets went about the cold-blooded task of building a team that was custom-designed to play for a championship. Forget how it ended. Remember how it began, when they boldly signed Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. They did this knowing that Durant wouldn’t play for them the first year he was signed with them.
Didn’t matter. The Nets were Going For It. Then they added James Harden, the basketball version of doubling down on that method. Along the way, they ridiculously parted ways with Ken Atkinson — check the standings if you want to see how he’s doing — but they were also capable, on some nights, of looking as good as a team can possibly look.
There was one night — Jan. 12, 2022 — when the whole program seemed to click, a 138-112 thrashing of the Bulls in Chicago, when the Durant/Harden/Irving tandem combined for 61 points and 22 assists and looked as close to a perfect basketball machine as the law allows. That was six months after only Durant’s toe on a line kept the Nets out of the Eastern Conference finals and a shot at the title.
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