KYRIE IRVING’S OPENING act in Brooklyn was marred only by slick footing. It was the final possession of his first regular-season game — Oct. 23, 2019 — against the Minnesota Timberwolves. With 50 points already in the bank and the crowd roaring in anticipation, Irving dribbled opposite Josh Okogie with the game hanging in the balance, before slipping and performing an aerial cartwheel, falling but maintaining his dribble. He immediately popped back up and nearly drained an off-balance winning fadeaway at the buzzer.
The Nets lost the season opener, but electricity coursed through Barclays Center. Brooklyn had its first bona fide star in his prime suiting up for the Nets, one who would record point totals of 50, 39, 37 and 33 over his first 11 games before being sidelined by a shoulder impingement.
Yet talent comes with cost, especially with Irving. League sources say executives, coaches and players who were present during Irving’s time in Cleveland and Boston shared with the Nets negative intel — his unresponsiveness and truculence with coaches, his lack of self-awareness with teammates, his constant defiance of offensive game plans, his disinterest in playing off the ball. But the Nets, multiple sources say, knew that bringing Irving aboard was the cost of doing business: No Irving, No Kevin Durant.
To be sure, the Nets would be acquiring an otherworldly talent to pair with Durant. For all of Irving’s fickle behavior, his production, shot creation and finishing ability have been among the league’s best (11th in points per chance among 40 players with at least 7,500 shot attempts since 2013-14, when Second Spectrum began tracking).
But the Nets team he and Durant were joining was a paragon of cohesion — a team of castoffs, lower draft picks and reclamation projects who had overachieved and embraced an effort to build from the ground up.
Over the next year, several of the linchpins of that culture would be dealt to acquire James Harden to form a superteam.
By the time Harden grumbled his way out of Brooklyn, as he had into Brooklyn, the vibe at the facility in Sunset Park was vastly different — and the league took notice. Several top league executives assert that devising a strategy around chasing big-name stars doesn’t hold the same appeal it once did. They’ve watched the likes of the Celtics in the Kyrie Era, and now the Brooklyn Nets, the Los Angeles Lakers and — for the time being — the LA Clippers believe they could absorb superstars into their existing structures, only to be underwhelmed by the results.
One unintended consequence of bringing in players like Durant and Irving is that an upstart core often hears a pointed message that management doesn’t entirely believe in what is being built, despite years of gospelizing the value of culture. As much as an organization might believe that arriving superstars will adapt to the team culture that preceded them, superstars often don’t adapt to cultures; they replace them.
“Assembling a superteam is something very, very few organizations can do,” one senior league executive says. “And we’re seeing that even fewer can actually pull it off because superstars aren’t enough — it has to be the right superstars in the right culture. What this current era of NBA basketball is showing us is that going all-in — whether it’s with cap space or all of your loot — to go acquire two or three of the top talented players in the league and having either underperforming infrastructure or a complete lack of roster depth, you’re doing nothing favorable for your organization.”
No team serves as a more compelling study than the Nets, who are still looking for a sustained breakout as they scrap for a playoff berth in the play-in tournament. The Lakers didn’t even get that far.
This postseason offers a referendum — is the era of the superteam over?
FEW PHENOMENONS DEFINE the era of player empowerment more than the superteam. After decades of watching a bunch of functionaries move pieces around the chessboard, the talented stars who drive the value of the NBA decided they would determine where they’d play and with whom they’d play.
Two of those stars, Durant and Irving, opted to sign with Brooklyn when they hit free agency in 2019. Nabbing the duo required no recruitment, something Marks told the media in the days following the signing. Durant and Irving intended to play together somewhere. Durant said in 2019 he never even spoke to the Nets before deciding to come to Brooklyn.
The Nets team those superstars joined was a feel-good story. Capable NBA franchises sell either hope or success, and in 2019, the Nets had given their fans plenty of the first with promises of the second. A team headlined by D’Angelo Russell (traded away by the Lakers after two seasons), Jarrett Allen (a late first-round pick in only his second year), Joe Harris (acquired along with cash considerations for a second-round pick) and Spencer Dinwiddie (waived twice by the Bulls prior to the 2016 season) scrapped its way to 42 wins and a playoff berth as the No. 6 seed.
A young front office with Spurs alumnus Sean Marks at the helm had finally shaken off the last vestiges of the disastrous 2013 trade with the Boston Celtics that gutted the organization of its draft assets. Marks and head coach Kenny Atkinson helped transform the culture of one of the league’s woebegone franchises.
The Nets bowed out in the first round of the 2019 playoffs with a 4-1 series loss to the Philadelphia 76ers, a dignified exit for a team that had won only 69 games during the previous three seasons. Yet as pride coursed through this band of overachievers, a reality set in for the Nets’ ownership and brass, sources say: Overachievers don’t win NBA championships. Achievers do.
Enter the superstars.
IRVING BEGAN HIS tenure as the lone superstar on the floor, as Durant spent his first season with the Nets sidelined by a torn Achilles tendon suffered in the 2019 Finals. Irving ultimately played only 20 of the Nets’ 64 games before undergoing season-ending surgery. NBA players typically operate with some degree of isolation from the team when working through rehab, but Irving and Durant had a bevy of medical specialists and personal trainers outside the team’s purview that added to their sense of removal from the Nets, sources say.
Atkinson had some difficulty managing the superstars from afar. According to multiple sources, the starting assignment at center became a source of internal strife, with DeAndre Jordan the preferred option for the vets, while Atkinson favored the blossoming Allen. Sources describe the situation as a proxy battle between the scrappy pre-2019 Nets and the new brand-name iteration. As much as the existing core in Brooklyn acknowledged that having transcendent talents would goose the offense, the cultural transition “bummed them out a little,” in the words of one source with knowledge of the locker room dynamic.
Durant was initially impressed by his intel on Atkinson’s approach to his coaching craft coming into Brooklyn, but as the Nets languished, sources say he was increasingly underwhelmed by the team’s lackluster play. Though multiple sources with knowledge of the Nets’ internal machinations say that reports that Atkinson’s firing in March 2020 was at the direct command of Durant and Irving are greatly exaggerated, the dynamics that led to Atkinson’s demise in Brooklyn were informed in large part by the new composition of the roster.
Admire him, loathe him, pity him or be confounded by him, Irving has been a very complicated piece in that composition. One Nets source says it’s not so much one single act that weighs on the team or organization, but rather Irving in the aggregate: “It’s always something,” irrespective of how productive he is when he suits up.
Brooklyn’s acquisition of James Harden, 18 months after signing Durant and Irving, was the ultimate Faustian bargain. By trading away Jarrett Allen, who made the All-Star team this season, and Caris LeVert, the team’s 13th-ranked defense got 1.4 points per 100 possessions worse and plummeted to 22nd. The Nets bowed out to Milwaukee in the conference semifinals. Comparatively, the Nets’ short-handed, seven-game effort against the Bucks without Irving for the final three games, and with Harden absent for Games 2, 3 and 4, might be the highlight of the Harden Era in Brooklyn.
Sources say that much of the discontent between Harden and the Nets started in September when he arrived into training camp out of shape. Durant had been understanding of Harden’s predicament in Houston as a man in need of new scenery, but also tacitly expected his former teammate to commit himself to conditioning and self-care when he came seeking a title in Brooklyn, according to a source close to both stars. With Irving’s status already in flux due to his unwillingness to get vaccinated, Durant was astonished in the opening weeks of the season at Harden’s lack of explosiveness and sluggish play, something he attributed in large part to Harden’s being out of shape, as he did the ensuing hamstring issues.
Harden, sources say, found Durant’s slant grating and self-righteous. The two never resolved the conflict, and there was little that teammates, coach Steve Nash or Marks could do to mediate it. With each passing week, Harden became more isolated, with staff and teammates increasingly frustrated by the static. The Nets ultimately excised him from the locker room in a blockbuster trade deadline deal with Philadelphia for Ben Simmons.
The notion that Harden — or Irving — would find religion in Brooklyn and embrace the culture when surrounded by colleagues he respected now seems quaint. Culture can encourage a superstar, but it can’t change him. To a superstar, culture is merely a series of suggestions, not a list of imperatives.
Above any one superstar’s temperament, the overall ethic in Brooklyn has changed over the past two years. As one source inside the organization characterized it, the Nets have gone from a team for which decisions both on and off the court were made in service to a conscious culture, to one where decisions are made to please certain constituencies, be it star players or ownership. Cardinal principles like accountability run second to the whims and preferences of stars like Irving, Harden and Durant. That trade-off can manifest itself in any number of smaller ways — a softer defensive scheme preferred by the stars, an ad-hoc offense or even availability to play — and the biggest one: esprit de corps.
Marks disagrees with this portrayal. “We have always involved our key stakeholders at the appropriate times,” he says. “Our players are at the core of everything we do. They set and drive our culture, and receiving their input sometimes allows you to see things from a different point of view. Ownership has been nothing but supportive of our decisions. Personally, I love bouncing ideas off Joe [Tsai].”
Nevertheless, the superteam construction is a bargain that has yet to pay dividends for the Nets, and they’re not alone.
GIVE THE LAKERS some credit: Unlike the Celtics of the mid-aughts and the Nets of today, they don’t operate under the pretense of “culture.” In Lakerland, the superstars are the culture. The late Jerry Buss established the star system as the franchise identity decades ago, and the Lakers have stayed true to it. Let the San Antonio Spurs and Miami Heat have their precious culture. Let them break bread and bask in the “Heat Way.” We’ll bank on talent.
This year’s model was no different, packed with five surefire Hall of Famers, four of them 33 years of age or older. Seduced again by brand names last summer, the Lakers demonstrated their institutional prioritization of superstars over cultural, as well as on-court, alignment. The team acquired Russell Westbrook in exchange for much of its depth and some of its grittier contributors. James was publicly defensive over his role in constructing the roster and voiced assorted veiled comments about Lakers management. Meanwhile, deposed coach Frank Vogel needed the permission of the front office to bench Westbrook in the fourth quarter. The results were disastrous, as the joyless firm of James, Anthony Davis and Westbrook failed miserably.
Yet it’s not as if it hasn’t worked before, lest we forget that they won a championship in Davis’ first full season after he pushed his way to the Lakers in 2019. And James has had plenty of success at his previous stops.
His Miami and Cleveland teams boasted one crucial difference to the current Lakers — and Nets — squads: Despite their constructions as superteams, each featured at least one megastar who was indigenous to the organization.
History shows that a superteam has a better chance to succeed with an organizational anchor. The Big Three in Boston, which presaged the Superteam Era, dominated the 2008 season, with Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen joining Paul Pierce, the Celtic product. The construction of the 2010-11 Miami Heat might have been radical in assembly, but they had a strong mainstay in Dwyane Wade. As commanding as James was, he was not going to divert from the Heat Way, so long as Wade and Pat Riley were driving the bus. And when James eventually returned to Cleveland in 2014 and found a team that was far less organized and more lackadaisical in its habits, James prescribed a healthy dose of the Heat Way.
Though James left and returned, he was undoubtedly “of Cleveland,” as was 2011 No. 1 draft pick Kyrie Irving. The 2016 champion Cavs, like virtually every winner in recent memory, featured superstars native to their organization. Outside of the 2019-20 Lakers, no team comprising a core without a homegrown star as one of its two best players has won a title in more than 40 years.
If the superstar is the culture, he better be the right superstar and, most important, a homegrown one.
THE COMPOSITION OF the postseason field that tips off this weekend reveals an emerging truth about the NBA: Superteams, like the Nets and Lakers, are out. Homegrown squads — with perhaps the strategic acquisition of a “final piece” — are very much in.
The Phoenix Suns tower over the rest of the league. The Memphis Grizzlies, almost an entirely homegrown roster, are a decisive second. The Milwaukee Bucks enter the playoffs as the incumbent champions whose blueprint was used to build something special. And the Boston Celtics staged a second-half rally to vault themselves toward the top of the standings, with the East’s best point differential by a wide margin. The teams best equipped for success aren’t those meeting with marquee free agents in July or trying to nab stars at the trade deadline in February, but are those that develop from within.
The most recent dynasty, the Warriors, stands as the ultimate prototype, as did the Spurs team Golden State dislodged as Western Conference champs. The Suns added a veteran star point guard in Chris Paul to a strong youth movement he has mentored. Paul accelerated and refined a culture, but he didn’t replace it.
The Grizzlies’ ceiling, with homegrown star Ja Morant, hasn’t yet been defined, but the sky is high in Memphis, which is offering a template in ground-up construction in which players, coaches and management collaborate in the building.
Giannis Antetokounmpo presides in Milwaukee as one of the iconic leaders of his generation. Drafted as a teenager, Antetokounmpo grew up in the organization and stayed, in large part, because he feels he has a piece of the enterprise he has helped build. And if the Celtics win this postseason, it won’t be with Irving, Gordon Hayward or Al Horford on massive long-term deals, but with a starting five comprising their first-round picks in 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2018, and journeyman Horford with only a single guaranteed season remaining on his contract.
Too often, the superteam requires an organization to sign away custody of its culture to outsiders. And superstars, even those with the most blessed talent, are still outsiders. They have egos to accommodate and brands to manage. Their on-court preferences will supersede anything previously installed or valued, because dominant people dominate.
The payoff increasingly doesn’t justify the sacrifice. As much as a superstar like James or Durant can survive in chaos, teams have much more trouble. The vagaries of the NBA season present countless pitfalls. In those moments, organizations must have some first principles to draw upon, even if superstars can rely on sheer talent.
Yet free agency isn’t a trend, it’s a reality, and superstars feel more empowered than ever to demand trades, even in the midst of a long-term contract. NBA teams, particularly those in glam markets, will forever be drawn to the max superstar — whether or not he warrants the max or is worth the trouble. Talent is alluring, and developing homegrown stars isn’t easy.
Brooklyn, the Clippers and the next team that lures a couple of marquee names from outside the franchise could win and win big.
But until that happens, the NBA’s Ma and Pa shops are emboldened. If they want superstars, they’ll grow their own.
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