NBA: Looking back at the 5 best storylines from the 2018-19 season
The Brooklyn Nets and D’Angelo Russell’s unexpected revival
If you watched any basketball towards the beginning of this decade up until now, then you’d know the rollercoaster ride this Brooklyn Nets team has taken themselves on. From trading away all their picks and future in quite possibly the worst trade in the history of basketball to acquiring the right pieces to the puzzle and making it to the playoff when nobody thought they could, these Nets have seen it all.
The Boston Celtics thought they hit a gold mine when they traded away their old vets for all of Brooklyn’s picks a few years ago, but the team hasn’t won a ring like they set out to since 2008. Meanwhile, Brooklyn endured many years of mediocrity, but one way or another they found themselves very quickly recovering from their grave mistake. The Celtics used their picks to eventually acquire All-Star Kyrie Irving while the Nets made more trades and acquired 21-year-old D’Angelo Russell from the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Lakers cast out Russell after a dispute involving him and his teammates causing the entire organization to lose faith in the young prospect. Russell was shipped out to Brooklyn and before anyone knew it he broke out. In just his second year with the team, he led them to the playoffs with career highs in almost every stat category.
As for Kyrie and the Celtics, they immensely underperformed this past season causing severe issues between Irving and his team. As of right now, all signs point to Kyrie wanting to depart from Boston and actually head to Brooklyn to play. If Kyrie went to Brooklyn it would be the full circle ending to the disastrous trade that happened many years ago.
The Celtics took all of Brooklyn’s future to eventually get Kyrie Irving only for him to want to leave and play in Brooklyn. So now Brooklyn’s succeeding faster than anyone anticipated, D’Angelo Russell’s an All-Star and a candidate for Most Improved Player, and Kyrie Irving wants to play for the Nets. Russell really showed the Lakers just what they passed on by flourishing into a franchise point guard on his new team.
Now I personally don’t see how Brooklyn’s going to make it work if they have both Kyrie and Russell, but if they find a way for the two to properly share the ball in the backcourt then I don’t see why they can’t lead their team to the conference finals. Huge props to the Brooklyn Nets administration for working out such an impressive turnaround of a franchise in such short amount of time.