Stephen A Smith Lost His Shit Over The Brooklyn Nets With A Vintage Stephen A Rant
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Stephen A, take a breath. I get that this is all part of the schtick and normally I enjoy when Stephen A goes on these types of rants, but this one feels a little forced. Then again, it's ranting like this that has earned Stephen A a shit ton of money. At the same time, it's not like the Nets are at the bottom of the East. They're 10-5. Yeah, they got their ass whooped over the final 24 minutes of last night's game against the Warriors, but guess what? They won't be alone in that. The Warriors are back to being a wagon and Steph is back to being virtually unstoppable
At the same time, this is what comes with the pressure of being a superteam. Especially when you didn't even make the ECF the year before. Few teams in the league have more pressure on them this season than the Nets, so when you get embarrassed on national TV like they did last night, this is what comes next. If you don't like it, play better.
There are some things I agree with Stephen A on though. Brutal look for Nets fans to allow Steph's MVP chants to be louder than KD's. That's not a great look. I also know what it's like to put your trust in Kyrie Irving and how that could maybe not be the best idea. But this whole "KD has no help"? No no. James Harden is an MVP and has turned around his play after a slow start. Heading into the year all the talk was about how good their depth was. Additions of Patty Mills, LaMarcus Aldridge, and then bringing back Blake was what made them a superteam remember?
He later went on to talk about KD should be asking for a trade and Harden apparently wants out and that's mostly nonsense in my opinion. But what we are seeing is that the Nets were built a certain way. The idea of this working was heavily reliant on Harden/Kyrie/KD all playing. When you take away a player like Kyrie and what he does in terms of production and the gravity that he forces the defense to react to, that matters. It's not so different from what's going on in Philly. For a while, the Sixers were able to survive without Simmons. Now? They're sliding, mostly because of Embiid missing time, but also due to the fact that their defense is dogshit. It went from the best in the league to in the 20s in terms of defensive ranking. Even with his faults, Simmons was an important part of that defensive formula.
The same is true with Kyrie and the Nets. This isn't all basically the same issue from the playoffs we just witnessed. When the Nets had all three, they looked unstoppable. Even if you want to attribute some of that to the injured Celtics being extremely pathetic defensively, all year we saw when those three played the Nets were nearly unstoppable. Without one, things change. They become mortal, even with KD playing outside of his mind.
So while it'd be silly to truly overreact like this when the Nets are still 10-5, there is reason to believe that not having Kyrie available is a big deal. Especially because we have no idea how long this BKN window is going to exist. Right now, only KD has his extension. That's why there is so much pressure for them to win right away.
We'll never know if KD regrets his decision, but my guess is he doesn't. He knew what he was getting into, he chose to sign the extension, and I think we'll eventually see Harden do the same. The Kyrie part is anyone's guess. The Nets will probably have a tough time finding a trade partner and I can understand why they took his extension off the table. At the end of the day though, this is what KD wanted. He wanted to have his own team and all the pressure that went with it. I'm not sure why anyone would feel bad for him.