HAD TO DO IT
Nets GM Sean Marks says when the chance to trade for superstar James Harden arose, he had to take the opportunity
GM Sean Marks said the Nets organization is “without a doubt” disappointed Kyrie Irving is not with the team. Irving has missed the last five games for personal reasons, and while he is regularly COVID testing and following the league’s health and safety protocol, there is no timetable for his return.
“I’m not going to shy away from it. Without a doubt the organization is disappointed with not having any one of our players, in this particular case, Kyrie, not among us, not in the trenches with us, and so forth,” he said. “I don’t want to speculate, and say why he’s out and so forth. I’ve had conversations with him and I’ll continue to have conversations. And we look forward to him being back in the gym where he will address this.”
Irving is under NBA investigation after a video surfaced of him attending a family birthday party in a crowded space with no mask on.
NOT DONE MAKING MOVES
Trading Caris LeVert, Jarrett Allen, Taurean Prince and Rodions Kurucs for just one player left the Nets with three open roster spots. Marks said the team is in no rush, will wait to see which players become available, then assess roster needs between now and the March 25 trade deadline.
Marks also noted that he is not done making deals, that the Nets have the potential to remain one of the league’s more active teams on the trade market.
“Without a doubt the roster is not done, it’s not yet finalized I mean it should never be to be quite frank,” he said. “We should be doing our due diligence. We have open roster spots so I have utmost faith in our scouting department that over the years has done a tremendous job for us. We’ll continue to try and add pieces as we go through this season.”
The Nets will need to replace Allen, who reclaimed the starting job from DeAndre Jordan and has turned himself into one of the league’s premier rim-running and protecting big men.
“I look at replacing JA as this is an opportunity for other people. This is a great hopefully confidence builder for them,” Marks added. “People can sort of seize this moment and take their games to another level. We’ve seen that in the past whether it was through injuries or trades, other people have used this as a platform to really step up.”
DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN
Marks said earlier in the offseason that he wouldn’t “mortgage the future” in a deal for Harden. Now he’s traded away two budding young stars and up to seven future first-round picks. So what changed?
“We have to make these hard decisions; it’s never easy, it certainly wasn’t easy yesterday when I had to talk to these players at the end of the day,” Marks said. “And I don’t want to make light of that situation, that we had to do this just to win a championship.”
The Nets made this mistake in the past and lived to regret it, coughing up draft assets and young players in the botched Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce trade. The price of readmission to the playoff picture without their draft assets: a three-year playoff drought, and the sting of regret dealing picks that eventually became Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum.