Life hasn’t been easy for the Brooklyn Nets without Kyrie Irving.
When it was revealed that Kyrie Irving would not be allowed to be a part-time player and that he was going to be away from the team, at the very least, to start the season, many didn’t view it as a big deal in how it would tangibly impact the Brooklyn Nets.
However, at least through the first week of the season, the Nets don’t seem as overwhelmingly dominant as many expected them to be – even without Kyrie in the lineup.
The expectation was that Kevin Durant and James Harden would still be enough to carry this team to a championship, and that very well may still be the case, but there’s no question that the Nets have gotten off to a rocky start to begin the year.
Brooklyn is 1-2 through the first three games, having been blown out by the defending NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks in the first game of the season, then making a fourth-quarter comeback to narrowly beat the undermanned Philadelphia 76ers in the second game of the season, and then were outscored by the Charlotte Hornets by 24 points to lose the third game of the year.
And the stats aren’t kind to the Nets either. Brookly, after the first three games of the season, is ranked in the bottom third of the league in offensive rating, defensive rating, and net rating.
If Durant and/or Harden aren’t doing anything particularly special on the offensive end, they’re just not a good basketball team right now. And they’re certainly not good enough on the defensive end to get away with their inefficient offense at the moment.
And there are some caveats. For one, three games is an extremely small sample size. Let’s not get it twisted; no team should be graded or criticized for such a small sample size. Not even playoff series are decided by three games.
Additionally, perhaps the Nets are still getting used to life without Kyrie and the new supporting cast that is surrounding Durant and Harden. That could also be playing a factor early this season, especially if head coach Steve Nash is still trying to find the right rotation without the team’s usual starting point guard.
There could be a lot at play here and there could also be some rust on Harden, who has really struggled to find his rhythm this season. He’s averaging just 18 points and eight assists per game so far this season on sub-40 percent shooting from the field.
It’s tough and unfair to pinpoint at just one thing that is hurting the Nets at this point in the season, but you can’t help but wonder if they’d be 1-2 to start the year if Kyrie was active and in the starting 5.
Life hasn’t been as easy for the Nets as many predicted it would be for them before the season. And there may not be an easy fix in sight, other than perhaps Kyrie rejoining the team.