After a chaotic summer of turmoil and infighting, the Brooklyn Nets have nowhere else to look but ahead. With just a few weeks to go before the start of a new season, they have the chance to set themselves up for a long playoff run if they can get off to a strong start early on.
And while star point guard Kyrie Irving may come with a lot of questions and doubts, he’s ready to play the best basketball of his life this year and make up for his past mistakes.
Kyrie Irving Assesses The State Of The Nets Ahead Of New Season
Already, in pre-season, he has taken initiative as a tone-setter and vocal leader for Brooklyn. Speaking to reports ahead of the season, he got real on their needs and explained some of the areas he sees room for improvement.
“The low-hanging fruit that we could honestly all agree on is sometimes in possessions we’re not playing hard enough. You saw it against Miami the other night. They were really physical and we don’t want that to be our stigma or M.O. in the league,” said Irving. “Everybody knows each other, but the most physical teams usually win ball games, especially down the stretch.”
“Guys are going to be coming at us, and we want to erase everything that was said about our team the last few years in terms of our weaknesses,” Kyrie Irving said after a longer than usual practice session that even included referees. “We want to turn those into our strengths — and it starts with developing good habits. And going out in the game and not just talking about it but actually doing it. So we’ve got to be tougher. We’ve got to be more communicative on our defensive principles out there. We’ve got to be comfortable with being uncomfortable at times. You know, we’re going to mess up things but we don’t want it to carry over to the next possession. And that’s what our carry-over has been in practice . . . just onto the next play. Regardless of what the refs are doing, regardless what our opponent is doing we want to focus on us and make sure we put the best brand of basketball we can out there.”
With averages of 27.4 points, 5.8 assists, and 4.4 rebounds per game last season, Kyrie Irving is obviously still a guy who can play at a high level. The gripe with Irving has always been his behavior and actions, not any of his on-court play.
For the Nets this season, Irving will attempt to lead and direct the roster after leaving them in the dust last year. Now, he is doing all he can do to bring out their best.
it will be interesting to see how effective Irving is as a leader this season, and how the Nets are able to work with him after everything that transpired.
