Where the Brooklyn Nets have been, and where they could go

Looking at the symmetry of the two eras of the Brooklyn Nets and where they could find their next player to go with Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson.

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

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Inger on the Beach; Edvard Munch; 1889

The symmetry between the Brooklyn Nets’ two marches into the hallowed halls of NBA contenderdom is beautiful in a morbid sort of way.

In the first Brooklyn era, with the Deron Williams trade, the Joe Johnson trade, the Paul Pierce-Kevin Garnett trade — all of that all-in behavior from Mikhail Prokhorov and Billy King and Bobby Marks — the team topped out in the second round of the playoffs, and imploded hard in the aftermath. In the three seasons from 2016-18, Brooklyn won 21, 20 and 28 games. That’s a deep, deep valley after climbing just a modest peak. It’s a bit like being ask successful as the current Philadelphia 76ers, but then time running out on that experience and dropping back down into The Process.

The Brooklyn Nets’ second brush with contenderdom also topped out with a single second round appearance. Kyrie Irving hit the ejection button a couple of times, Kevin Durant followed and the era is over with very little to show but more fired coaches and more wasted time.

The twist here is that the prior regime let the early edition of the roster disintegrate. All those stars of the 2013-15 Nets? Here’s how they left the Brooklyn roster.

• Kevin Garnett was traded for Thad Young and retired 18 months later

  • Young re-signed with the Nets and was eventually traded for Caris LeVert, who was eventually included as a small piece of the James Harden deal, who was eventually traded for Ben Simmons — this is one of two lingering trails from the previous Nets era on the current roster

• Joe Johnson was bought out in the middle in the 21-win season

• Brook Lopez was traded to the Lakers with the pick that became Kyle Kuzma in 2017 in the D’Angelo Russell deal

  • Russell was eventually moved to Golden State in the Kevin Durant sign-and-trade

• Paul Pierce left as a free agent after one season in Brooklyn (the year they made the second round and got punked by the Heatles)

• Deron Williams was bought out and his cap hit stretched in 2015

That’s just a brutal unwinding. Basically, all of the assets the Nets traded out to land that roster, and all the money Prokhorov spent in salary and luxury tax and goofy billboards, and all the fines Jay Z had to pay for talking about recruiting LeBron and Dwyane Wade on Watch the Throne … all of that for a single second round series (lost 4-1 to LeBron and Wade), a year or so with Thad Young, a couple years of Caris LeVert and the D’Angelo Russell experience. Brutal.

That’s where the two eras of Brooklyn Nets contenderdom appear to diverge.