The Brooklyn Nets’ ill-fated trade for Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett in July 2013 left the team with bleak short, medium and long-term futures. On the court, the pair did not work out. Ageing very quickly after leaving Boston, the two never bettered the team; Brooklyn only got as far as a 44-38 regular season record the season immediately after the trade, which was actually a backwards step on their 49-33 campaign previously, and loafed to a mere 38-44 the season after that. Thereafter, the bottom fell out completely, and the Nets have not cracked 30 wins since. The bigger problem, though, was off the court. To acquire the duo (plus veteran reserve Jason Terry, young forward D.J. White who was soon out of the league, and the #57 pick in the 2017 NBA Draft), the Nets gave up a bevy of assets. They gave up unprotected firsts in all of 2014, 2016 and 2018, and only because of the rule (colloquially named the Stepien Rule) that prevents teams from leaving themselves without a first-round pick in consecutive future seasons were they able to keep a first-round pick in 2017. Even then, though, they traded the right to swap it. In total, this trade cost Brooklyn all of James Young (#17, 2014), Jaylen Brown (#3, 2016), Markelle Fultz (#1, 2017; or Jayson Tatum at #3 if you’d prefer) and Collin Sexton (#8, 2018). With all due respect to Aleksandar Vezenkov, the saving grace of the #57 pick in 2017 coming back the other way probably doesn’t salve the pain much. And that was a lot to pay for no discernible improvement. Ever since that trade, the team has been in a quagmire, with an assets cupboard barer than any asset cupboard should ever be, and no obvious way out of […]
