Mike D’Antoni was watching the Brooklyn Nets’ season-ending loss to the Boston Celtics on Monday night from his living room in Austin, Texas, a world away from the drama his protégé, Nets coach Steve Nash, had just lived through.
A year ago, D’Antoni had been on the Nets’ bench alongside Nash as the two-time MVP coached what will go down as one of the greatest teams that never was to within a shoe size of the Eastern Conference finals.
Nine years ago, D’Antoni had been on the Los Angeles Lakers’ bench for another notoriously star-crossed season, when Nash, Kobe Bryant, Paul Gasol and Dwight Howard flopped their way to a first-round sweep.
But this year, this Nets season, was like nothing D’Antoni had ever seen.
“The situation was just so strange,” he said. “When you throw all the things that happened to them this year … and then having to fight for their lives for a month just to get into the play-in game … I don’t think it’s odd that they struggled.”
After it was all over Monday night in Brooklyn, Nash and the Nets’ superstars took their turns at the lectern, making similar allusions to the off-the-court drama that overwhelmed the Nets this season and left them exhausted on every level by the end of it.
Kyrie Irving called it “being the polarization of the media scrum” and “noise.”
Kevin Durant referenced a lack of “continuity.”
Nash spoke directly about “all those things off the floor” and how they affected the team on the court.
“Our guys wore down,” Nash said. “They’re tired.”
The final minutes of Monday’s game brought all of it to the fore.
With 2:45 to go, and Boston leading 109-103, Brooklyn caught a massive break when referee Sean Wright called the sixth foul on Celtics star Jayson Tatum.
On the next play, a resurgent Blake Griffin muscled a key offensive rebound over Boston’s Al Horford, leading to an Irving 3-pointer that cut the lead to three points. When Durant stole the ball from Jaylen Brown and hit a 14-foot floater to cut the lead to one with 1:28 to go, it seemed the momentum had swung toward Brooklyn.
But instead of salvation, the Nets found more exasperation in a season defined by it.
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Kevin Durant reacts to how the Nets’ season ended and whether or not Steve Nash is the right coach for the team going forward.
Durant missed back-to-back 3-pointers and a key free throw, Irving failed to box out Horford on an offensive rebound and putback after Griffin had kept Marcus Smart from converting a fast-break layup, and all that was left to do at the game’s end was shake hands and credit the superior team on a series sweep.
Afterward, Durant was asked if he had any regrets about the season, the series or the game.
“No regrets,” he shrugged. “S— happens. We’ve been through a lot this year. Everyone in the organization knows what we’ve been through.”
Durant started to list the things that have happened to the Nets this season, but he quickly lost interest in the recap: Irving’s battles with the city of New York over its vaccine mandate, the James Harden trade, the uncertainty over Ben Simmons’ back injury as well as his mental health, a COVID-19 outbreak, injuries, a lack of consistency and most glaringly, camaraderie that proved impossible to develop.
“I wish we were more healthy as a group,” Durant said. “I wish we had more continuity as a group. But that’s just the league. Every team goes through that.”
He seemed both tired of talking about the drama and uninterested in making excuses. Aside from his injuries, Durant had been the Nets’ most consistent player.
Only he knows how much of a physical and mental toll it took on him. Monday night he wasn’t in the mood to admit to any fatigue or use that heavy load as an excuse.
Nash, however, was blunt.
“Over the course of the season,” Nash said. “There were just too many [things].” In many ways the basketball world performed a season-long autopsy on what went wrong for the Nets.
But the premise of those analyses is flawed.
It isn’t what went wrong for the Nets, or what happened to them. It’s about the decisions that allowed these team- and culture-shattering problems to exist in the first place.
Whether it be Harden quitting on the team and asking to be traded midseason, Irving being unable to play in games in New York City and Toronto due to his vaccination status, or even Simmons’ decision to force a trade from Philadelphia after last season and drawn out a “ramp-up” process to play again, which never came to fruition.
The Nets’ management and ownership have tried to support their stars throughout the season. Generally, superstar players appreciate that kind of respect. But outside of Durant, the Nets’ superstars did not make good on the deference they were shown, and that’s a problem for a team built as a star system.
Just think how much time and energy the Nets wasted on off-the-court issues that could have been spent on basketball. How many hours were spent discussing Irving’s vaccination status? How much energy was spent deliberating on what to do with Harden? How many hours were spent deciding whether Simmons would play in Game 4, rather than how the Nets were going to adjust to the Celtics’ swarming defense?
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Kyrie Irving admits his status was a distraction to the Nets this season and remains adamant he will return to Brooklyn in the fall.
Irving alluded to the toll and his responsibility in it after the game.
“It was just really heavy emotionally this season,” he said. “I felt like I was letting the team down at a point where I wasn’t able to play.
“I never want it to be about me, but I feel like it became a distraction at times.” Irving then reaffirmed the power he and Durant have been given within the organization.
“When I say I’m here with Kev, that entails us managing this franchise together — alongside Joe and Sean,” said Irving, who was referring to Nets owner Joe Tsai and general manager Sean Marks.
“We need to really be intentional about what we’re building.”
Irving spoke of his motivation to build a better team and culture next season, and not just relying on individual performance as the Nets so often had to this year. But he was clearly speaking as a star who has been fully empowered by his franchise, which is great when things work out but uncomfortable when they end as badly as the Nets’ season did.
If that sounds familiar, it is.
The West Coast version of the Nets — the Lakers — fizzled out in much the same way this season.
It’s ironic for a coach such as Nash, who made a name for himself as a player in a system as democratic as D’Antoni’s “Seven seconds or less” Phoenix Suns, and a general manager like Marks, who was reared in the San Antonio Spurs’ culture hive, to have built a team like this.
Like everyone else, they will each reflect on what they could have and should have done differently. Then they will try it all again next season, hoping the lessons from this season will matter.
“The tough part is we all grew a tremendous amount, we just weren’t able to benefit from it this year,” Nash said postgame. “To have gone through everything we went through this year, to say goodbye is tough. Because we fought hard to stay together.”
Nash is right. The Nets fought. They just weren’t always fighting the opponents on the floor.
D’Antoni, for his part, still has faith in Brooklyn’s superstar-laden roster.
“You’ve not seen anything of what they can do,” D’Antoni said. “It needs to have a chance. But it’s New York, and New York is, ‘What have you done for me yesterday?’
Shaquille O’Neal isn’t buying Ben Simmons’ excuse.
The Basketball Hall of Famer went off on Simmons after the All-Star guard was ruled out for Monday’s Game 4 against the Celtics with back soreness.
“In the hood we call this a punk move,” Shaq said Sunday during “Inside the NBA” on TNT.
“You know, when things are going good, ‘Oh yeah I’m going to play in Game 4.’ Now that [the Nets] lost, ‘My back hurts.’ Well, if your back hurts, get some Icy Hot. I’ll send it to you,” said O’Neal, who counts the pain-treatment product among his many endorsements.
“We call this a punk move. Listen, if you’re not ready to play, you’d get more respect from the people if you just say, ‘I’m not ready to play’ and don’t say nothing else. Don’t be shooting and saying, ‘I’m coming back.’ … If you’re not going to play, don’t say you’re going to play. I think you should play.
“I think you should step up to the challenge and help your team win. But no, the punk move… we all know what that is,” O’Neal continued. “Ballers know what that it… Guys that live this life, we know exactly what you’re doing buddy.”
O’Neal also said he agreed with Reggie Miller, who went off on Simmons in a tweet after the Nets guard was ruled out for Game 4.
“Cmon MAN!!!” Miller tweeted Sunday. “Out for Game 4 when it was rumored you were going to make your debut. This dude has ZERO competitive [fire] .. As small a chance as the Nets have to come back in this series, you still have KD and Kyrie, all you need is to win ONE game and take it from there.. #ManUp.”
Ben Simmons won’t play for the Nets in Game 4 against the Celtics.Corey SipkinShaq discussing Ben Simmons on “Inside the NBA” on Sunday.TNT
O’Neal’s latest criticism of Simmons came after he called him a “crybaby” in February, and said he doesn’t “respect” him while discussing Australian star on “Inside the NBA” on TNT. O’Neal added that Simmons was mad about his comments at the time and confronted him in a message on Instagram.
ESPN reported Sunday that Simmons had woken up with back soreness from a herniated disc he’s been dealing with since he was with the Sixers. That came 10 days after Simmons was reportedly pain-free amid ramping up to make his debut with the Nets.
Last month, Nets coach Steve Nash said Simmons had an epidural shot “to accelerate his recovery.”
Simmons has not played a single game this season after he asked for a trade out of Philadelphia in the offseason during a summer holdout with the team. The Sixers traded Simmons at the trade deadline in as part of a package for James Harden.
The Nets will try and avoid a sweep Monday night in Brooklyn as the Celtics are up 3-0 in the first round NBA playoff series.
You heard the question as rivals eyed the standings and maybe even jockeyed to avoid them:
Why is everyone so afraid of the Brooklyn Nets?
Well, that’s why: Even when perhaps the world’s best player shoots 9-of-24 — even amid a season in which it has been impossible for them to develop any momentum — they take the No. 2 seed to the wire in Game 1 of what could be a riveting first-round series.
All it took was one of their two (available) stars compensating for the shooting struggles of the other, plus good games from two role players — Nic Claxton and Goran Dragic.
It felt like Game 5 of a late-round series. These teams know each other. They attacked in the ways you expected. The coaches did not leave much low-hanging adjustment fruit.
The end result was a gut punch for the Nets. The Boston Celtics are the more complete team. They went 33-10 in their last 43 games, mauling opponents by 13.5 points per 100 possessions — almost double the margin of the No. 2 team (the Phoenix Suns, an NBA metronome) in that span. Their rotation has been consistent for months.
You need similar cohesion to beat a team this good four times in seven tries. The Nets have enjoyed cohesion for zero seconds. Steve Nash is still stitching lineups — choosing between undersized three-guard groups heavy on shooting, and stouter defensive units featuring two non-shooters Boston’s vice-grip defense can ignore. Every choice is fraught.
Joe Harris’s absence has loomed over this entire season; he might be the best shooter among Brooklyn’s perimeter role players, and better than all but Bruce Brown on defense. The potential presence of Ben Simmons looms over this series. The Nets are hopeful he might return, maybe soon, and he might unlock the center-less lineups that probably represent the team’s highest ceiling.
All those uncertainties are why snaring Game 1 seemed urgent for the Nets once they took the lead. Their margin for error is a little smaller. Simmons would widen it some.
My best guess would be Brooklyn brings Simmons off the bench, at least at first, if he returns. The team has finally settled on a starting five in Kyrie Irving, Seth Curry, Bruce Brown, Kevin Durant, and Andre Drummond. I would be mildly surprised if the Nets upended it to accommodate a unique (to be polite) player who has not played in 10 months.
Even a limited Simmons would help the Nets get out in transition, and fortify them on defense and on the glass. (Boston’s overall size helps in ways that might be tough to notice in transition defense. They don’t have to worry about finding specific matchups; they each can take whichever opposing player is nearest. The Nets don’t run a ton, but they are efficient when they do.)
Boston smoked the Nets on the glass in Game 1. That was baked into the series. Boston ranked 11th in offensive rebounding rate, the Nets dead last in defensive rebounding. It will only get worse if Robert Williams III returns. That said, Brooklyn can be more diligent gang rebounding.
Daniel Theis, normally not much of a threat, plucked four offensive boards in Game 1. The Nets went the unconventional route of guarding him with Curry — a gambit that allowed them to put their two best defenders, Durant and Bruce Brown, on Tatum and Jaylen Brown. (Irving guarded Marcus Smart, with Drummond on the resurgent Al Horford — who logged a shocking 41 minutes! That seems unsustainable, even without back-to-backs.)
The Celtics could and should have gone at that matchup more by using Theis as a screener for Brown and Tatum — forcing the Nets to choose between getting themselves into rotation, or switching Curry onto one of Boston’s stars.
I wonder if Boston will even get that chance now. Brooklyn could rejigger matchups to eliminate the Curry-Theis weirdness. It could shift Curry onto Smart; Irving to Jaylen Brown; Bruce Brown onto Tatum; Durant onto Horford; and Drummond to Theis. That would end Theis’ volleyball game on the glass and spare Durant the burden of guarding Tatum — at the cost of slotting a smaller guard onto Jaylen Brown.
When it has nothing better going — and when Tatum rests — Boston might try posting up Jaylen Brown and even Grant Williams when the Nets hide smaller players on them. Both can playmake if the Nets send help. Jaylen Brown brutalized Bruce Brown on one post-up. Anytime Jaylen Brown or Tatum ends a Boston defensive possession on one of Brooklyn’s undersized guards, they should sprint the floor and cement that matchup.
Tatum played 45 minutes in Game 1, including the entire second half. Boston barely outscored opponents in the regular season when Jaylen Brown played without Tatum. The Nets have to win those minutes. The Celtics have to win the non-Durant minutes — which they failed at in Game 1, even though Tatum played every second Durant rested. Expect the Celtics to focus more on those minutes in Game 2 — to throw more help at Irving, and perhaps make sure Theis and maybe Payton Pritchard are on the bench.
(By the way: How many players are better than Tatum right now? There is Giannis Antetokounmpo, Durant, Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic, and probably Luka Doncic. Is that the whole list? Your mileage may vary on how to rank Stephen Curry and LeBron James. Tatum was probably better than both this season — it’s close — but those guys are legends. No one wants any part of James in one game. Curry is on the outer edges of his prime, powering an offense unlike any other in stylistic terms. But Tatum has surpassed James Harden, Jimmy Butler, Damian Lillard, Anthony Davis, and Paul George. He’s above the best young guys, including Ja Morant, Karl-Anthony Towns, Devin Booker, Trae Young, and Donovan Mitchell. His companion in terms of overall rank might be healthy Kawhi Leonard.
This is Tatum’s series. He’s guarding Durant and serving as Boston’s No. 1 option on offense. That is what apex superstars do. He blocked Irving and Durant on jump shots in Game 1. Durant’s own guy swatting his jumper is unheard of. Danny Ainge took flak for some missed draft picks and an alleged tendency to hoard assets. Some of that was justified, much of it not. But the former Celtics president of basketball operations and his staff probably haven’t gotten enough credit for trading down to select Tatum — and getting another lottery pick in the process. That is an all-time masterstroke. Imagine if the Celtics had taken Markelle Fultz or even Lonzo Ball?)
Boston did well getting Tatum matched against Brooklyn’s small guards. The Tatum-Marcus Smart pick-and-roll — with Tatum as ball handler — might be Boston’s defining play of the series. Boston runs the reverse quite a bit too, and the Nets need to be better ducking Tatum’s screens for Smart — and maintaining their matchups. You can’t duck Smart’s screens for Tatum; that gifts Tatum easy pull-ups.
Boston mixed up its entry points to the Tatum-Smart two-man game. The Celtics surprised the Nets on two straight possessions by having Smart enter the ball to Tatum on the wing, and then scurry down to screen for him:
Smart’s pick mashes Durant, freeing Tatum. The Nets were ready for this on the next possession; Tatum preyed upon their expectations:
That Tatum spin-away is becoming one of his signatures.
For the season, Boston scored 1.401 points per possession on any trip featuring the Tatum-Smart pick-and-roll — No. 1 among 426 two-man combinations with at least 100 reps, per Second Spectrum. The Tatum-Derrick White pick-and-roll has the same effect, since White is often the hiding place for opposing point guards.
The Nets might try to avoid switching — even if it means Smart’s guy lunging to corral Tatum, briefly leaving Smart open and triggering rotations behind the play. When Brooklyn dialed in, it managed to defend without conceding the switch; this was a really nice bit of late-game defense:
Of course, Tatum can kick to Smart, and let Boston’s point guard take it from there in 4-on-3 situations. Boston has the collective passing chops now to exploit that. It’s incredible that in the span of 40 games, Boston has transformed from a team that didn’t pass enough to one that sometimes overpasses. (You can see White’s confidence in his jumper wavering.)
But Boston is still only a so-so shooting team around Tatum and Brown, and the Nets know it. They slid away from pretty much everyone else to crowd Boston’s stars, sometimes coaxing kickout passes. Brooklyn is betting on their ability to contest those shots, and on those Celtics missing:
(That’s another method of getting a small guard onto Tatum: running Tatum off a pindown from that guard’s man, in this case Grant Williams. Brooklyn has to either switch, or chase Tatum over — granting him a runway. Both are bad choices.)
Boston’s spacing around those Tatum and Brown isolations was sometimes clunky.
Brooklyn likes to mismatch hunt too; Boston just has fewer weak spots. White is a really good defender, but too short for Durant (who isn’t?) and not physical enough to disrupt Durant’s rhythm. Durant went at White every chance he got, to great effect.
Theis and Horford might be the pivot points of the series. The Celtics love to switch everything, but they have been hesitant (by their standards) to switch their bigs onto Durant and Irving. The Nets should prod that more. If Boston’s bigs drop back in pick-and-rolls, Irving and Durant rain pull-up fire.
Make enough of those, and Boston will switch. That starts an interesting cat-and-mouse game. Irving and Durant can roast Boston’s bigs off the bounce, but they sometimes choose not to — settling for pull-up 2s instead.
You can understand why:
Irving has Horford beat, but he sees a thicket of defenders. Theis leaves Drummond to clog the paint, and Smart takes an extra step from Brown to cover for Theis. That should expose Boston to some drive-and-kick meanness, but the Celtics are long, rangy, and very smart; they might be the league’s best help-and-recover team — experts at showing help without overcommitting, or revealing any easy passing lanes. Even here, they nudge Irving away from Durant, and stay within range of every Net.
Boston can also switch those bigs onto Irving and Durant, and spring hard double-teams on them — to quell a run, or just to keep Brooklyn off balance. The Celtics also tried pre-switching Horford out of pick-and-roll as his man jogged up to screen.
Swapping out one non-shooter opens the floor wide for Brooklyn. Those lineups are tiny — compromised on defense. Even the teensy four-guard lineups Brooklyn favors when Durant rests have both Bruce Brown (serving as power forward) and Claxton. Those lineups generally aligned with Tatum’s playing time — making it easier for Tatum to play mismatch ball. (I thought the Nets might try to avoid such overlap with Tatum.)
Boston stayed pretty big against those groups, producing some awkward matchups — including Horford guarding Dragic. Dragic spent most of that time chilling in the corner. The Nets might peck at that matchup by having Dragic run around pindowns, or set ball screens. Of course, the Celtics would probably switch all those actions. Boston could also go smaller, with only one of Horford, Theis, and Grant Williams. The Smart/White/Brown/Tatum/Horford group closed Game 1 and went plus-7 in 13 minutes.
With two non-shooters, the Nets have to max out on creativity and high-level anti-switch devices. Slipping screens before really setting them — getting ahead of the switch — is probably the most common anti-switch technique. Irving got one layup in Game 1 by using another: faking toward a ball screen, baiting the switch, and then zipping away from the screen — and away from both defenders. The Nets need more of that, plus the kind of set pieces that involve several players of different sizes — sewing confusion:
The other options are drastic: unearthing LaMarcus Aldridge for some combination of size and shooting (he could in theory play alongside Bruce Brown or Claxton/Drummond), or saying to hell with it and playing Durant at center with four guards.
That is where Simmons would change their team. The current Durant-at-center lineups are just too small. Simmons is 6-foot-11. He’s an elite defender and rebounder, though not quite the rim protector you’d hope (yet). He can play the Bruce Brown role on offense, only above the rim (if he’s not afraid to get fouled). He’s a good enough playmaker that the Nets might be able to play him with Brown. (The Nets have enough shooting to try Simmons with one of Claxton and Drummond in bigger lineup types.)
You can win with Irving, Curry, Guard X, Durant, and Simmons — whether Guard X is a defense-first guy like Brown, or one of Dragic and Patty Mills.
Alas, we don’t know if or when Simmons might return, or how much he’ll give. One or two such “ifs” make for an uphill battle against a team as together and buttoned-up as Boston — especially without home-court advantage. Even if Brooklyn loses tonight, it still has three of the remaining five games at home. It has the firepower to beat anyone.
It’s just hard to imagine these Celtics losing four times in five games. The Nets may need Game 2.
After running and shooting without back pain for over a week, Brooklyn Nets star Ben Simmons is expected to take the next step on the floor in the coming week and begin practicing against teammates on the court, sources told ESPN on Saturday.
His continued progress is fostering hope that Simmons could make his season debut sometime later in Brooklyn’s opening-round playoff series against the Boston Celtics, sources said. The Nets and Celtics meet for Game 1 on Sunday in Boston.
So far, Simmons has been limited to 1-on-0 workouts, but that’s on track to change and the Nets remain hopeful that they can get something out of Simmons in this series, even if it’s just 10 to 15 minutes a game, sources said.
Simmons had an epidural shot in mid-March to subdue pain and irritation associated with a herniated disk in his lower back.
The Nets acquired Simmons in a blockbuster deal with the Philadelphia 76ers at the February trade deadline, but he has yet to play an NBA game since the Eastern Conference finals in June. Simmons wanted a trade out of Philadelphia, eventually sitting out citing his mental health.
Simmons, 25, is a three-time All-Star and two-time All-Defensive first-team selection.
PHILADELPHIA — Joel Embiid said that he’s glad to be done answering questions about “that subject” when asked if he was relieved that the Ben Simmons Saga was officially in the past for the Philadelphia 76ers after Thursday’s blockbuster trade that brought James Harden to the City of Brotherly Love.
“Yeah, I’m happy that I’m not going to be answering any more questions about that subject,” Embiid said after finishing with 25 points and 19 rebounds in 35 minutes in a 100-87 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder at Wells Fargo Center Friday night. “It’s good that, not just for me, but my teammates, the whole organization. The whole year, it was pretty annoying with the whole situation, but I’m glad that everybody has moved on.
“I wish everybody the best in whatever they want to accomplish, but I’m focused on winning games here and trying to win a championship.”
That pursuit of a championship will now, finally, be without Simmons, after the months-long drama surrounding his wish to be traded away from the 76ers culminated in Thursday’s deal with the Nets — one that saw Harden and Paul Millsap dealt here in exchange for Simmons, Seth Curry, Andre Drummond and a pair of first round picks.
While Embiid went out of his way to avoid saying Simmons’ name, it was clear there were things about the situation that remained annoyances to the big man. He went out of his way to say that it “sucks to lose some of my teammates,” praising both Curry and Drummond for their contributions to the franchise.
And when asked if he had talked to Simmons, or if both of them were going to move on, he referred back to a report during training camp that Simmons wanted to have his own team, and no longer believed that the partnership with Embiid could work after last season’s loss to the Atlanta Hawks in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
“I honestly don’t care, honestly,” Embiid said. “Like I’ve always said, it’s unfortunate how everything happened, because you look at the history and we didn’t get it done as far as winning in the playoffs, but you look at the history being on the court, what we did in the regular season, we were dominant.
“So it’s unfortunate that winning was not the biggest factor. It’s unfortunate that for him, having his own team and being the star was more of his priorities. But I always thought that everything was great, the fit was great. But unfortunately Ben thought that it wasn’t. But we all move on.”
The one final parting shot Embiid did give Simmons was a tweet Thursday in the wake of the trade of a popular internet meme of a man in a suit at the funeral of one of his “haters.”
When asked about how long he had that tweet ready in preparation for a deal happening, Embiid — who has the nickname “Troel” in his Twitter bio — couldn’t keep a straight face as he tried to play off the question.
“Honestly, I don’t even know what the tweet was about,” Embiid said with a knowing smile. “I just tweeted a random person. I just saw the picture on the internet and I thought he was well dressed. He had a nice suit on, good looking, you know, he had some swag.
“So I just thought it was a good picture.”
Embiid and the Sixers will be hoping that he and Harden can form a picture-perfect tandem on the basketball court. Embiid said the two players have already spoken, and Embiid — who said several times he was excited about the prospect of playing with the former NBA MVP — already thinks Harden is the best player he’s ever played with.
“It was just a lot of excitement,” said Embiid, who was wearing a wrap on his right hand/wrist after he woke up with it swollen following Tuesday’s loss to the Phoenix Suns. “Just excited. You talk about guys that I’ve played with, he’s probably gonna be the best yet, based on what he’s accomplished in his career so far.
“So it’s just about getting everybody on the same page and finding the right way to play. We already have a system in place so we’ve just got to bring him along and incorporate a bunch of new stuff with a bunch of stuff that he’s good at and put it all together.”
Embiid also said that he’s looking forward to having someone on the court who can take as much attention away from him as he usually does from his teammates.
“I think the way to look at it, every single time I touch a ball, there’s a double or triple team which is gonna make my teammates and himself even better,” Embiid said. “So now you really got a choice. Are you going to double me or are you going to double him? So you got to make that decision and based on every game it might change.
“Other teams might want to take me out of the game or other teams might want to take him out of the game. So we just adjust and then we just go from there. But like I said, it’s exciting. I never played with someone like that. So I’m just excited for the new challenge and try to go and get it done.”
While Philadelphia doesn’t have much time to get things sorted out — after Friday’s win, the 76ers (33-22) have just 27 games remaining, and Harden has already been ruled out of Saturday’s game here against the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Still, 76ers coach Doc Rivers declared that Harden’s arrival has deservedly given Philadelphia expectations of chasing a championship — expectations he, and his team, are ready to embrace.
“No one else can put no more pressure on myself than I do,” Rivers said. “It will never happen. I’m in this to win. I’ve always been in this to win. When you get into that, when you make that decision, you understand there’s going to be pressure with it. And there should be. Because if there wasn’t, everybody would be champions. I think the reason we did this deal is so we can jump into the fray.
“I think [we are good enough],” Rivers continued. “I don’t know. That’s something we’ll find out. We did it with the belief we do, obviously.
“We don’t have a lot of time. The Phoenix’s of the world and teams, Milwaukee and Miami, they’ve been together Milwaukee three years, four years, as a group. So we have to get it done quickly.”
Let’s take a moment to remember the Brooklyn Nets of James Harden, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving — the greatest theoretical team of all time, and for 16 glorious games an unstoppable scoring machine capable of making magic through beautiful ball movement or domineering one-on-one play.
The Nets traded everything they had to add Harden to the Durant-Irving tandem. They recouped a good portion of that and got younger by flipping Harden and Paul Millsap for Ben Simmons, Seth Curry, Andre Drummond and two first-round picks — a roundabout, if unpleasant, vindication of their decision to nab a third star.
The Harden-Simmons megadeal was the defining move of one of the wildest trade deadlines ever. It reshaped the league, beefing up the Eastern Conference around the Miami Heat and defending champion Milwaukee Bucks.
Every trade deadline leaves some players, coaches and teams facing more pressure than they were under 24 hours before. Let’s bounce around and see who’s newly on notice. (If you want a more straight “winners and losers”-style evaluation of these trades, you can find it in Thursday’s Lowe Post podcast.)
JAMES HARDEN
Harden couldn’t make it work in Houston with Dwight Howard. He wasn’t the first or last teammate to clash with Howard. Harden nearly made the Finals alongside Chris Paul, but grew tired of Paul’s leadership style; Harden pushed Houston, then run by current Sixers GM Daryl Morey, to flip Paul and major draft compensation for Russell Westbrook — a deal that became an organizational catastrophe.
After one more failed playoff run with Westbrook, Harden was done in Houston. He sulked and threw lazy passes until the Rockets traded him where he wanted to go — to Brooklyn. When things got difficult there, Harden got wanderlust again — chasing a new star in a new city.
Harden is right that Brooklyn was not what he had envisioned. Irving declining to get vaccinated changed everything. It is probably the biggest reason this has fallen apart. Irving has played 12 games this season. He still can’t play at home. Without him, the Nets’ margin for injury was reduced. Then injuries came: first Joe Harris, then Durant. After years of running pick-and-roll on a perfectly spread floor constructed to fit his whims, Harden was peering through small creases amid lineups featuring two and sometimes three non-shooters.
Harden could have dug in and fought. Durant is returning soon. Perhaps Harden thought Irving would never be a full-time player again, and that Harris might miss the rest of the season. Fair. The Nets with Harden and Durant could have done major, major damage. Harden bailed.
That is his prerogative. The Nets salvaged a lot from his departure. They are fine.
But this has to be it for Harden. He’s 32, having his worst season in a decade. He’ll be almost 34 when his assumed new mega-contract kicks in. The back end of that contract — if it’s the full boat — will bring some pain. Morey and the Sixers know that. They will pay a pain tax later if it means a ring in the next two or three seasons. The deal Thursday left enough two-way talent around Harden and Joel Embiid for the Sixers to win it all. Possible starting fives of Tyrese Maxey, Harden, Tobias Harris, Embiid and one of Danny Green or Matisse Thybulle have huge two-way potential.
Maxey competes on defense and has started to jack 3s with gusto — off the catch and off the dribble. (He’s at 40% overall on 3s.) The Thybulle version of that lineup may be a little light on shooting, but any lineup with Embiid and Thybulle is going to be pretty airtight on defense. Thybulle is the only non-shooter in that group, and he has made strides as a cutter beneath Embiid high-post actions.
The Sixers could use one more reliable bench guy, but Furkan Korkmaz, Georges Niang, one of Green/Thybulle, and Shake Milton (once he returns) is a workable start given the quality of the starting five — and that Doc Rivers can keep one of Embiid and Harden on the floor at all times. Maybe the deal reinvigorates Paul Millsap. Isaiah Joe, Paul Reed, Charles Bassey and Charlie Brown Jr. have shown glimpses but are unproven. Expect the Sixers to trawl the buyout market for a backup center.
Regardless, turning a roster spot giving you zero into Harden is a big present-day win. These Sixers can win the title. The pre-trade version could not have won the East. Those are the stakes now, for Harden and the team: title or bust.
Harden has few if any high-leverage postseason capital-M moments since a dagger 3 sunk the San Antonio Spurs in the 2012 Western Conference Finals — 10 years ago. He has had several brutal high-stakes games, including, somehow, three separate 2-of-11 playoff performances. One featured 12 turnovers. Another was so inexplicably bad it left insiders wondering if Harden played through a concussion or some other unknown malady.
His crunch-time shooting numbers have fallen off more than we’d expect of a typical ball-dominant star. A lot of his best postseason games have come in the first round, or with his team way behind (3-0 or 3-1) or way ahead in later-round series. A disproportionate number of his crunch-time postseason buckets have come with his teams hopelessly behind — layups (almost conceded in some cases) to cut the lead to five with 20 seconds left.
Harden may not care — and maybe he shouldn’t, there are more important things in life — but he’s running out of time to craft his postseason legacy. This is his newest chance.
Embiid may not be a classic Harden rim-running lob-catcher, but I don’t worry about them developing pick-and-roll chemistry. I mean, come on. But will Harden commit to being an active threat while Embiid posts up? Will Harden buy into more of a non-switching defense?
BEN SIMMONS AND KYRIE IRVING
On paper, the fit is tremendous: Simmons becomes Brooklyn’s Draymond Green, pushing the pace, flying into rapid-fire screens and spraying passes out of 4-on-3 situations. The Nets ran fastest when Irving played without Harden; Simmons amplifies that. Brooklyn has enough guards and wings to play Simmons at center, though it trends a little small on the wing now with Curry in place of Harris. The Nets still have more centers than they can play. Their current team is really good, but with a couple of tweaks, next season’s could be a menace. (Brooklyn’s upcoming schedule is tough; if Durant doesn’t return soon, the play-in could turn into an inevitability.)
But, umm, is Irving on that team? Is Irving playing home games anytime soon? It seems premature to project a wonderful three-star meshing given that Irving has barely played this season and has a player option for next season. The Nets originally intended to ink him to a max extension, but they demurred after Irving’s decision on the vaccine. Irving also left the team for an extended period last season, an absence that played into Brooklyn’s decision to acquire Harden. That’s right: In search of stability, the Nets chased James Harden.
If things go haywire (or stay haywire?), the Nets might be able to flip Irving for something just as they did this week with Harden. But Irving’s trade value is, to put it politely, a little lower than Harden’s, and the more star-for-something trades you make from a position of vulnerability, the more you dilute your team. You can’t perpetuate that cycle forever. Value drains away. (From the moment they got Harden, the Nets’ dream if-necessary move to balance the offense-defense leanings of the roster would have been something very much like — and maybe exactly like — Irving for Simmons instead of Harden for Simmons. That was obviously not possible for about 27 different reasons. To be clear, the Nets did well here. They almost certainly pushed for Maxey, then Thybulle when Maxey was deemed a no-go, but ending with Curry and two first-round picks is solid. Curry helps now and could fetch something in a deal down the line — or unlock more Joe Harris deals.)
Simmons has not appeared in an NBA game in eight months. The last time we saw him practice, he got kicked out and may or may not have performed drills with his phone in his pocket. He cited his mental health in stepping away from the Sixers. How game ready is he?
Forget the jumper. Who cares about that at this point? Can he make enough free throws so that he’s not afraid to get fouled?
KRISTAPS PORIZINGIS AND THE MAVERICKS FRONT OFFICE
Porzingis should take this trade as a huge slap in the face. The Mavs in the end traded Dennis Smith Jr., Deandre Jordan, Wesley Matthews and two first-round picks for Trey Burke, Courtney Lee, Tim Hardaway Jr. (considered to be on a bad contract at the time of the original Porzingis deal), Spencer Dinwiddie and Davis Bertans.
Dinwiddie is shooting 38%. Bertans barely saw the floor for a flailing Washington team. Their combined salary is roughly equal to that of Porzingis over the same number of years. There is no way to read this trade other than the Mavericks flat wanted out of the Porzingis business.
They are surely hopeful Dinwiddie will rebound, providing some of Hardaway Jr.’s (out with a foot injury) missing punch and maybe some leverage with Jalen Brunson in free agency. Bertans will get great looks next to Luka Doncic. He’ll shoot better; he can’t possibly shoot worse.
But what the Mavs really did here is split Porzingis’ contract into two smaller ones in an effort to get leaner and more flexible. They had come to realize Porzingis was not a worthy No. 2, and probably not even a worthy No. 3. He’s a constant injury risk. He’s good, but not that good. His two-man game with Doncic never really clicked.
Still: The ceiling of these new 2021-22 Mavs even with improved play from Dinwiddie and Bertans is not as high as that of the old version with a fully operational Porzingis — who has played well on both ends this season when healthy.
This is the Mavs risking a step back in the short term to enable a bigger step forward in the medium term — an attempt to find the right co-star, or co-stars, around Doncic as he enters the meat of his prime. One rival GM described the Mavs’ salary predicament before the deadline as a “ticking time bomb” — making them a team at risk of handcuffing itself to something a little below greatness if it paid full freight for Porzingis, Brunson and Dorian Finney-Smith.
They have mitigated that risk a bit here, even if this seems to be selling unthinkably low on Porzingis. They extended Finney-Smith on Thursday, per ESPN’s Tim MacMahon, and can re-sign Brunson this summer. That will take them well into the luxury tax for a team a tick below the elite, but they have more avenues to wriggle free now.
That’s step one — and one would assume Doncic is on board with it. The next step — adding at least one star — is the hard part. The Mavs have swung and whiffed in free agency a lot since their 2011 championship.
At this cost, the Wizards are basically taking a no-risk flier on a player once thought of as one of the league’s premiere young talents. Why not? Let’s see how Porzingis meshes with Bradley Beal.
DE’AARON FOX
It’s always fun to clown the Sacramento Kings, but I thought the criticism of their acquisition of Domantas Sabonis went overboard. Indiana did win the trade, though. Player for player, Tyrese Haliburton is more valuable than Sabonis — younger, under team control for (probably) a half-decade longer, with a more malleable game. Sabonis is a so-so defensive center (teams are going to run a ton of pick-and-rolls at the De’Aaron Fox/Sabonis duo) who needs the ball on offense and doesn’t shoot jumpers. It’s hard to build a great team around that kind of player, and sacrificing someone as exciting as Haliburton without opening a path to a great team is suboptimal.
But Sacramento is miles and miles from being a great team. Pretty good would be a home run. Not being some sort of absurdist comedy for, like, two consecutive calendar years would be a nice turnaround.
Sabonis is really good. Critics trumpeted Haliburton as Sacramento’s best pre-trade player. That has been true this season, but Sabonis was Indiana’s best player for years. He is metronome reliable, game-to-game and season-to-season. His hand-off actions and short-roll passing should blend perfectly with Fox’s high-speed bob-and-weave game. Both can destroy switches — Fox dusting bigs with speed, Sabonis mashing little guys in the post. They are close in age, on the same timeline.
The Kings know Haliburton has been their best player this season. They know he is more valuable — more tradable — on a rookie deal than Fox is shooting 27% on 3s and playing blah defense in the first year of a max contract. That’s part of the reason this deal stings: the Kings plainly targeted Sabonis, just as they once targeted Buddy Hield and only Buddy Hield in the Demarcus Cousins trade, and did so from a position of weakness given Fox’s disappointing season. Doing nothing is always an option. (The Kings approached the Atlanta Hawks about John Collins, though they did not discuss Haliburton or Fox in that context, sources say.)
The Pacers and Phoenix Suns had brief dialogue around Sabonis and Deandre Ayton, multiple sources say. It did not get far, sources say, and may have been mostly informal and broadly exploratory — and aimed at the future rather than anything now. No formal offer was ever made by either side. The Kings coming with Haliburton rendered everything else moot for the Pacers. The Suns not immediately hanging up the phone and tossing it out a high-story window at the prospect of shaking anything up — even in the offseason — is notable, though.
There was an interesting *theoretical* road map to a sign-and-trade in the offseason. Sabonis is due $18.5 million next season and $19.4 million in 2023-24. What will Ayton earn this summer as a restricted free agent? The Suns have functioned fine — in the regular-season, mind you — with Ayton injured. Sabonis is a more accomplished player than Ayton, but Ayton is a better fit for how the Suns play and what they need on both ends. Phoenix has incredible chemistry, and their two-way efficiency machine is running away with the league’s best record.
In any case, what’s done is done. This can work for Sacramento if Fox hones his jumper and commits to the grittier aspects of the game. Davion Mitchell is shooting 32% on 3s, and doesn’t project as a plus shooter. The fifth starting spot is a mystery. There is a lot of work to do here, and not a lot of shooting around the shaky-shooting Fox-Sabonis centerpiece.
SERGE IBAKA AND THE CLIPPERS WINGS
The Milwaukee Bucks were faced with losing Donte DiVincenzo in free agency. DiVincenzo is shooting 28% from deep as he works his way back from ankle surgery. Grayson Allen and Pat Connaughton have vaulted over him in the rotation. Wesley Matthews has exceeded expectations. George Hill is a human security blanket.
Brook Lopez is recovering from back surgery, leaving a void for a center who can shoot 3s, protect the rim and jostle with some of the NBA’s giants.
In that context, I get swapping DiVincenzo for Ibaka and two second-round picks. The problem is that Ibaka is coming off back surgery and looked like his old self in maybe one of every three appearances this season for the Clippers. You can never have enough two-way wings, especially if you’re going to play a decent chunk with Giannis Antetokounmpo at center. If Ibaka can’t find his groove and one among Allen, Connaughton and Matthews gets hurt — or just underperforms at the wrong time — the Bucks may feel minor pangs of regret.
(By the way: the Bucks and Marc Gasol — now in Europe — had discussed a potential late-season union, but that does not appear to be in the cards with Ibaka on board, sources tell ESPN.)
Meanwhile, the Clippers could be loaded with wings and small-ball power forwards next season: Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, Norman Powell, Terance Mann, Marcus Morris, Luke Kennard, Brandon Boston Jr., and maybe Amir Coffey, Robert Covington and Nicolas Batum. Covington will be an unrestricted free agent this summer. Coffey is slated to enter restricted free agency. Batum has a $3.3 million player option.
It seems unlikely all these guys are with the Clippers next season. That said, they are now really well set up to play more of the center-less lineups that eviscerated the Utah Jazz in last season’s playoffs; Tyronn Lue seems to like those groups.
THE MORIBUND LOS ANGELES LAKERS
Welp. These guys looked and sounded defeated after the Bucks embarrassed them at home this week. They all but asked the front office to do something, anything, to rearrange the team. Nothing happened. The solution must come from within, or via the buyout market.
The Lakers were resistant to offering their 2027 first-round pick — the only one they can offer — in trade talks, including as the carrot in a potential exchange of John Wall and Russell Westbrook, sources say. A deal I’d have pitched: Westbrook, Talen Horton-Tucker and that 2027 first-rounder for Wall and Eric Gordon. Does that change your life? Maybe not. But LeBron is 37, and this team looks broken. Maybe a better deal will come along in the offseason.
MARVIN BAGLEY III
Marvin Bagley can score. He just hasn’t been able to do that — or defend at a high enough level — being shoehorned into the power forward spot. Can the Detroit Pistons give him some time as a switchy stretch-center? There is real talent here.
The Kings, meanwhile, did sharp work flipping Bagley into DiVincenzo, Josh Jackson, and Trey Lyles. (Just ignore the names that followed Bagley in the draft.)
THE UTAH JAZZ
The Jazz did not turn the combination of Joe Ingles and a first-round pick into anything, instead attaching a second-rounder to Ingles to bring back Nickeil Alexander-Walker.
The idea of Alexander-Walker is worth some time and investment. He’s long, with good defensive instincts and shot-making prowess you can’t teach. He’s also shooting 37.5%, and just 31% on 3s, and his pass-or-shoot decision-making can go haywire.
It takes time for young players to learn the Jazz system. It’s uncertain Alexander-Walker will be a trustworthy rotation player in the postseason, and the Jazz really need another trustworthy rotation player — a good wing defender — to face off against the Warriors, Suns or Grizzlies.
THE BLAZERS FRONT OFFICE
I was a little surprised the Blazers didn’t keep Alexander-Walker, apparently choosing more cap flexibility over paying him $5 million next season. (They did fine in the CJ McCollum trade overall.) Right now, Portland’s roster around Damian Lillard, Anfernee Simons and Nassir Little is a big pile of uncertainty. Cap space has historically gotten Portland little in straight free agency.
The team and Lillard are saying all the right things about sticking together, but the Blazers have a ton of work to do between now and the end of free agency to build a team around Lillard with even a glimmer of a pathway toward contention in the next two or three seasons. The Lillard noise is not going to die down anytime soon.
THE SAN ANTONIO SPURS, IN THE WILDERNESS STILL
The trade deadline brought some clarity to the Spurs direction. They made three trades in as many weeks, signaling their entry into the NBA’s modern dealmaking ecosystem. Dealing Derrick White for the Boston Celtics first-round pick (and the right to swap picks with Boston in 2028, protected for the No. 1 selection) and to a lesser extent Thaddeus Young reveals a team that knows it is near the bottom of the standings.
But Young wasn’t playing at all and Josh Richardson — acquired in the White trade — was playing pretty well for Boston. The other tentpole young veterans remain.
The Spurs have cap space but limited free-agency allure. They have good young players, and extra picks for use in trades. (They explored deals to move way up in the draft last year, sources say.) Can they strike on the star trade market at some point down the line, and have enough talent leftover to play alongside that star?
The Spurs appear to be trying to stay “pretty good,” building toward something more without bottoming out. That is a worthy endeavor. A few franchises have accomplished it well, even without the injection of a star free agent. It will be fascinating to watch how the NBA’s gold standard franchise navigates the next couple of years.
As the Philadelphia 76ers begin to gather momentum in trade conversations for All-Star guard Ben Simmons, the Portland Trail Blazers reiterated that one of the Sixers’ top targets — All-NBA guard Damian Lillard — is not available to be discussed, sources told ESPN.
The Sixers and Blazers connected in recent days and Portland’s interim general manager, Joe Cronin, made clear to Philadelphia that the franchise still plans to continue building around Lillard, sources said.
Nevertheless, the Sixers are becoming more engaged on multiple fronts in talks centered on Simmons. Philadelphia has been aggressively trying to assemble two- and three-team deal structures to land a package that would include a top 25-level player, sources said.
Much of the increased momentum centers on Wednesday, when many players signed in the offseason as free agents become eligible to be traded. Starting Dec. 15, 84% of the 446 players under contract can be included in deals. Currently, 65% of the league’s players are eligible.
The Sixers have long targeted Lillard, who reaffirmed his desire to stay in Portland around the start of the team’s training camp. After the recent firing of president of basketball operations Neil Olshey, Cronin has publicly and privately said the franchise plans to keep building around Lillard. The Blazers have been open to discussing a deal for Simmons centered on guard CJ McCollum, but that conversation never gathered traction, sources said.
Simmons has yet to play for Philadelphia this season, saying he was addressing his mental health before rejoining the team. He made a trade request after the Sixers’ loss to Atlanta in the Eastern Conference semifinals last season.
PHILADELPHIA — Eagles center Jason Kelce has some advice for 76ers guard Ben Simmons: “Just play better, man.”
Speaking on the relationship between Philadelphia fans and its professional athletes Thursday, Kelce turned the conversation toward Simmons, saying his issues boil down to a lack of accountability.
“I tell guys, you write your own narrative. I don’t want to crush any other players, but what’s going on with the 76ers, Ben Simmons, stuff like that, all of that is because of a lack of accountability, a lack of owning up to mistakes and a lack of correcting things,” Kelce said. “If all that got corrected, if you’re fixing free throws, if you’re getting better as a player, none of this is happening. So everybody can bitch and complain about how tough this city is to play in. Just play better, man. This city will love you.”
Coach Doc Rivers threw Simmons out of practice Tuesday after he declined several times to sub in for a drill, sources told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. The 76ers suspended Simmons for Wednesday’s season-opening, 117-97 win over the New Orleans Pelicans for conduct detrimental for the team.
Wednesday marked the four-month anniversary of Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, when Simmons passed up an open dunk that would have tied the game with less than four minutes left. The Sixers lost to the Atlanta Hawks, and their season ended.
A short time later, Simmons asked for a trade, and he then held out the first two weeks of training camp in an attempt to force the 76ers to make a deal. He reported to the 76ers last week, and after going through several days of reentry protocols, Simmons practiced with the team Sunday and Monday before being tossed from Tuesday’s practice.
The 76ers have fined Simmons more than $1.4 million for his absence from four preseason games ($360,000 each) and levied numerous fines for missed practices, on-court workouts and meetings, sources told Wojnarowski.
Kelce said he has nothing personal against Simmons but called the situation “a travesty any way you put it.”
“These guys were all brought in here, a lot of talent, and it hasn’t worked out for them for whatever reason,” Kelce said. “But it’s a pretty good example of how not to handle the Philly media, at the very least.”
Kelce, 33, is one of the most beloved modern sports figures in Philadelphia. An 11-year veteran, he endeared himself to the fan base by helping deliver the first Super Bowl championship in the city’s history — a feat he capped at the title parade by giving an impassioned speech while wearing a Mummers costume on top of the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
He noted that being a good player helps, but the key to being accepted in Philadelphia is largely about being accountable and invested.
“There’s a lot of people that say it’s a hard place to play. I think it’s pretty f—ing easy, to be honest with you,” Kelce said. “You just go out there and play hard. You want to be loved in this city as a baseball player? Run to first base. They’re going to f—ing love you. That’s what it comes down to. If you come up here and make a bunch of excuses, you come up here and try to lie to them and act like they don’t know what they’re talking about — which sometimes they don’t — when you act that way or you aren’t accountable, you’re making mistakes or you’re not getting better, they’re going to crush you.
“Everybody’s going to get crushed at some point, everybody is going to go through a downturn and be struggling, and at all times this city is going to keep you accountable for doing your job and performing. But if you stick to it and you fight through it and you get better, they’ll respect the hell out of you. Even if you’re struggling and you’re fighting and you’re trying, they’re still going to respect you. That’s what I think most guys miss. I really don’t think this is a hard place to play at all. I think a hard place to play is … I think it would be miserable to play in a place like Jacksonville, where nobody cares.”
Simmons lists gaudy South Jersey home for $5 million originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
Ben Simmons is extremely ready to leave Philadelphia, as evidenced by his agent requesting a trade over the summer, him not showing up for Sixers training camp, him not participating in practice, and him listing his Center City apartment for sale.
And now Simmons is also attempting to sell his primary residence, his expansive Moorestown home.
The home hit real estate website Zillow in the late hours of Tuesday night, just hours after Simmons was kicked out of Sixers practice by head coach Doc Rivers for refusing to engage in a drill.
The New Jersey home comes with quite a lot: a gated entrance, five bedrooms, six bathrooms, an appointed chef’s kitchen, a basement-level gaming room and entertainment space, and plenty more.
You can also take a guided tour of Simmons’ gaming room in this SLAM video from a year ago, in which Simmons shows off his gaming setup and his personalized candy room – yes, candy room – with friend a pro gamer FaZe Temperrr:
It’s basically a mansion designed by an 18-year-old who subscribes to the Architectural Digest YouTube channel and spends all his time playing Call of Duty.
