It’s time for KD, Irving to prove they can win now

NEW YORK — In June, it will be three years since Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving announced they were coming to Brooklyn to play for the Nets. Together.

What they have mostly done since then, for various reasons, is not play together for the Brooklyn Nets. Up until now, Durant and Irving have been on the court together for 30 regular-season games in the 32 months since they signed.

There was the Achilles injury from which Durant had not yet recovered when he signed. There was the ankle injury that kept Irving out of the last three games of the Eastern Conference semis last June against the Bucks. There was COVID-19. There was, and is, Irving’s personal theories about vaccination that has kept him from playing home games, a situation likely about to change for him because the vaccine mandates are about to change.

When Irving finally did get back on the court with the Nets — who were against him playing just road games until they were for that — Durant hurt his knee. During all of these various dramas over the past year, James Harden came and went. Now Ben Simmons has come to town.

This would be a much bigger deal in New York City, both sides of the

East River, if the Nets mattered more than they do. But the reality for them — it’s why Sean Marks keeps swinging for the fences — is that they will only matter truly if they ever win.

Now, depending on how long this free fall of theirs lasts until Durant and Irving are finally back together on the court, here is another chance.

But for now the firm of Durant and Irving has won one playoff series, against the Celtics last season. It means that last season, before Irving got hurt and before Harden got hurt, the Nets made it just one round further than the Knicks did.

But again: Here is their chance, once they’re supposed to be back on the court together in March, to do what they came to Brooklyn to do.

That means win something more than headlines and news cycles. We’ve had a lot of teams like that around here, ones that never ended up holding up any trophies.

Has a lot happened to the stars of the Nets? A lot has happened, no doubt. Now they are supposed to make something happen on the court, at this time when they should be the only real basketball game in town and will be given a dream opportunity to effectively have the stage to themselves.

They were going to do it with these two stars, then they decided that they were going to add a third star in Harden. Then Harden, who moved heaven and earth to get himself out of Houston, decided he didn’t want to play with the Nets after all, which really means he didn’t want to play with Irving because neither would you.

When Harden became a problem in Brooklyn, the Nets traded him to the 76ers, and the Nets got Simmons, the 76ers’ problem, in return.

If you are keeping score at home, the Nets thought they had one powerhouse at the start of last season, then they built another powerhouse when they got Harden, and now they’re going to build yet another powerhouse with Simmons — destiny brought him and Kyrie together — and Steph Curry’s brother and Goren Dragic.

I keep waiting to hear they’re bringing back

Dr. J.

It makes you long for the good old days, when Kyrie, a Montclair kid, was on his way to the big city and telling the world, “In my heart, I always wanted to play at home.”

Until, of course, he wasn’t allowed to play at home because he is a graduate of the Novak Djokovic School of Advanced Medicine.

Now here he is and here they are. If everything does go well with mandates and Durant’s health, the Nets get to start a brand-new season, in the last month of the regular season.

They try to be the team they thought they were building when Harden was just a twinkle in Marks’ eyes. Durant gets to show that he can win with Irving the way LeBron won in Cleveland.