With all of the conversation about “super teams” as of late, it appears that Brooklyn’s Barclays Center has become super team central.
Both of the primary franchises that call Barclays Center home – the New York Liberty and Brooklyn Nets – have had an itch to create these super teams, but as of late October only one of them actually hit paydirt.
The Liberty did that following a grueling five-game Finals against the Minnesota Lynx. The team that added Breanna Stewart, Courtney Vandersloot and Jonquel Jones was built for the sole purpose of winning a championship. Mission accomplished as of October 20.
But…what about the Brooklyn Nets? It was not that long ago that the Nets also were constructed for the primary purpose of also claiming championship euphoria. What made the Nets so different than the Liberty?
It is really not that complicated. The super team that was constructed by Nets general manager Sean Marks felt it was bigger than the team – as opposed to the super team that was built by Liberty general manager Jonathan Kolb.
When the Nets brought together Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden to join forces, Marks, along with Joe Tsai, felt this was the team that not only would bring championship glory to Brooklyn, but establish a fanbase that would finally rival the New York Knicks in terms of relevance in New York sports.
A perfect analog for what happened to the Nets is one of those movies on the Lifetime Movie Network about rich and well-connected high school cheerleaders that think they run the school. That was the Nets’ big three in a nutshell.
Granted, injuries also played a major role and that big three only played a finite number of games together. Part of this, though, was not only because of injuries but because of how Irving wanted nothing to do with taking the coronavirus vaccine with New York City having some of the strictest COVID-19 protocols in the country in 2021 and 2022.
Between that and other questionable off-court activities, Irving became more of a circus than anything else. In fact, the Nets were even fined by the NBA during the 2021-22 season a grand total of $50,000 because he showed up unvaccinated in the Brooklyn locker room.
Not to mention Steve Nash in his first head coaching role. There is absolutely nothing wrong with player empowerment, but when egos become bigger than the team it usually wrecks them before they even have a chance to gel.
As a result, all three eventually went their separate ways. Durant went to the Phoenix Suns, Irving to the Dallas Mavericks (who were in last season’s NBA Finals only to lose to the Boston Celtics) and Harden to the Los Angeles Clippers. Oh – and let us not even get started on the issue of Durant’s foot being on the line in 2021 vs. the Milwaukee Bucks.
Now – look at the Liberty. Another team built to win now. After the 2022 season, the foundation was there with Sabrina Ionescu and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton as they were instrumental in lifting New York from the two-win doldrums of the 2020 bubble season.
Kolb went for broke prior to the 2023 season – and players were anxious to display to the WNBA that franchises (like the Liberty) who invest would be the ones that got blessed. New York added three players with Finals experience. Those three were Breanna Stewart (two-time champion and Finals MVP with the Seattle Storm), Courtney Vandersloot (who recently at the time won a championship with the Chicago Sky) and Jonquel Jones (who competed in two Finals with the Connecticut Sun the previous year as well as in 2019).
The difference? Look at who the Liberty had as its coach – Sandy Brondello. Unlike the Nets, the Liberty had a coach that had the respect of the players.
With alpha names such as Ionescu, Vandersloot, Stewart, Laney-Hamilton and Jones on a roster this could easily have been Brooklyn Nets 2.0. Except the Liberty put their egos to the side because of the greater goal of bringing New York its first basketball championship in over 50 years.
Brondello having a track record of coaching teams to championships (look at the 2014 Phoenix Mercury with Diana Taurasi and Brittney Griner) not to mention coaching the Australian Opals to Olympic & FIBA medals certainly helped matters.
Not only did the Nets miss their golden opportunity to finally one-up the Knicks, but the resurgence of the Knicks as contenders have returned things to more of the mean in terms of New York’s MNBA landscape. The Nets are once again playing second fiddle to the Knicks while the Liberty are about to be serenaded from Montclair to Montauk as the new queens of New York sports.
