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Solid write up by the score.
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Right off the bat, there were signs of a disconnect on and the court. The report from ESPN's Jackie MacMullan about Irving's refusal to participate in the Nets' biometric data-gathering drills during a preseason minicamp was perhaps the canary in the coal mine; an indication that he wasn't going to buy into the This Is How We Do Things Here ethos.
As a player, Irving's individualism was always going to be at odds with Atkinson's equal-opportunity offensive principles. It quickly became clear that Irving on his own couldn't meaningfully raise Brooklyn's ceiling. A source told Goodwill that Irving "soured on Atkinson early," and the feeling seemed to be mutual. Four games into the season, with the Nets averaging about 50 fewer passes per game than they did in 2018-19, the coach responded to a question about his team's disjointed offense by saying, "We aren't really running anything."
Some players legitimately want to be coached, but it makes perfect sense that the league's cream of the crop - the guys who've already accrued individual accolades, max contracts, and championships - would be resistant to hands-on instruction in a brand-new environment. Durant and Irving are far from the only players to whom that applies. On its face, the coach-star dynamic isn't built to last, and schisms like this make you appreciate the improbability of those rare instances when it does prove sustainable.
The Gregg Popovich-Tim Duncan model is the exception, not the rule, and it feels increasingly unlikely to recur in a league in which more and more superstars are recognizing the breadth of their power and how to wield it. Even the Warriors' much-heralded culture, which was initially so enticing to Durant, couldn't accommodate him without starting to warp and fray.
There were bound to be hiccups as the Nets transitioned from being a development-oriented team to one that pandered to superstar imports. Lavishing DeAndre Jordan, a pal of Irving's and Durant's, with a well-above-market deal worth $40 million over four years signaled that the organization was now in the business of serving its highest-profile players above anyone or anything else.
On the "Lowe Post" podcast, ESPN's Zach Lowe and Kevin Arnovitz suggested that Atkinson's deployment of Jordan as a backup to promising young center Jarrett Allen (whom Atkinson spent the previous two seasons grooming) was a source of burbling tension between the old and new factions of the Nets' locker room.
That seemed to be borne out in Brooklyn's first game under interim head coach Jacque Vaughn when Jordan started over Allen for the first time in more than two months and just the fifth time all season. (The Nets were 0-4 in those games before edging out the Bulls on Sunday. For the season, they've been 2.2 points per 100 possessions better with Allen on the floor than with Jordan.)
Many will undoubtedly see this as an unsavory extension of player empowerment, and it's tempting to point the finger at Irving and Durant, particularly because they've both been portrayed as insular malcontents at their previous NBA stops. Maybe that's fair, and maybe it isn't.
For his part, it sure seems like Atkinson contributed to the conclusion that he and his two new stars were incompatible, and that the dynamic had so little hope of working out that it didn't even make sense for him to finish a season in which neither guy would play another game.
To an outside observer, it's hard to believe Atkinson could've been the driving force behind the split because, no matter the cost, it's hard to believe an NBA coach wouldn't want a crack at coaching a player like Durant - one of the greatest pure scorers of all time, and one of the league's three best players at his peak. But coaches can be every bit as stubborn and strong-willed as players. It doesn't require a feat of mental gymnastics to conceive of Atkinson being unwilling to compromise his basketball values or see his influence diluted.
If most things that happen feel inevitable in hindsight, this development feels particularly so. And it doesn't have to be anyone's fault. It's just a consequence of the shifting, divergent priorities of an organization and its employees. The Nets had to do what they had to do. Last season's team was a feel-good story, but that group had limited upward mobility and the good vibes were only going to last so long. You can't stay green forever. Everything in this league has a short shelf life, including low expectations. Look at how quickly the fruits of the 76ers' rebuild started to rot.
This is also a good reminder of the fact that pivots like this never come without casualties. Atkinson's departure officially completes the Nets' rapid transformation from a fun chemistry experiment with no established timeline to a hothouse of win-now urgency, beholden to the whims of a pair of flighty stars. That was the bargain Brooklyn made last summer - and would surely make again because players like Irving and especially Durant are the most valuable commodity in the sport.
For as long as they remain world-class players, their voices are going to reverberate louder than anyone else's. And everyone in the organization, whether they're happy about it or not, has had to make their peace with that.
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