The Brooklyn Nets seem to have finally sorted their future out, the team is widely expected to once again compete for an NBA championship. With Kevin Durant agreeing to continue his tenure with the franchise and Kyrie Irving also committed to the cause for another season, they have every opportunity to secure an elusive ring next season. However, that is easier said than done, just having superstar-caliber players does not ensure success in the NBA.
While things between the Nets and their stars may be amicable at this point, some things happened in the offseason that will be hard to forget. Steve Nash was a coach that was reportedly handpicked by Kevin Durant, but the superstar asked for him and GM Sean Marks to be fired at one point. Reconciling with someone after trying to make them lose their job is difficult, and it will surely be tough for Nash to put aside his feelings in this scenario.
And it seems the former NBA MVP has more than just that to get over. Kyrie Irving may have recently committed to seeing out next season with the team, but he was the cause of a lot of the disconnect last season. And speaking on The Odd Couple podcast, NBA veteran Olden Polynice has revealed what Irving reportedly said to Nash at his own house during a party.
“One of the reasons why there are issues between him [Nash] and Kyrie Irving was because of a statement he made during a party at Steve Nash’s house. In front of everybody, Kyrie said, ‘You need to give those MVP trophies back to Kobe [Bryant] because you didn’t deserve them.’ To me, that was the beginning of the end for the Nets.”
This narrative that Nash didn’t deserve his MVPs has been peddled by a lot of people for a long time. And while his raw numbers don’t look so impressive, his contributions to the winning basketball the Phoenix Suns played cannot be overlooked. The offenses of the Suns powered by Nash changed NBA basketball the way it is played, and while Bryant has a case to have been MVP in 2005-06, Nash is also a very deserving winner.
If this story is true, it also casts into doubt how much the Nets coach can make up with his star players. Nash is famously affable, but that is an intense thing for Kyrie to have said, if he did say it at all. The Nets can be sure, though, that the only way to move on from this is to win next season.
