Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving wanted to win championships in Brooklyn. They ended up winning a single playoff series.
Durant and Irving’s high-profile team-up in 2019 brought together two of the NBA’s top superstars, players who had won each of the NBA’s previous three championships. Even with Durant out for the first year after an Achilles tear, expectations were high for the pair.
The expectations got higher when Brooklyn added James Harden to the mix in 2021, but he asked for a trade a year later. Eventually, all three stars asked for trades, and this week, Brooklyn sent Irving and Durant away in separate deals. The ultimate legacy of the Brooklyn super team? Seven total playoff wins and one series win.
For every superstar team-up that works, like Durant joining the Golden State Warriors in 2016, the Miami “Heatles” with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, or the Boston Celtics’ “Big Three” of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen, there’s plenty of super teams that crash and burn.
It’s not even the only failed super team in Brooklyn in the last ten years. In 2013, Brooklyn made a disastrous trade for Pierce and Garnett, adding them to their core of All-Stars Deron Williams, Joe Johnson and Brook Lopez. That team also won a single playoff series, before Pierce left after one season and Garnett was traded mid-season in 2015. Brooklyn had a losing record for four straight years, though they made the playoffs and won two games as a 38-44 team in 2015, meaning they matched Irving and Durant’s seven playoff wins.
Meanwhile, Boston parlayed the Nets picks into Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and two years of Irving.
In 2012, the Lakers thought they were building a surefire title team by trading for Dwight Howard and Steve Nash, who joined All-Stars Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol and Metta Sandiford-Artest. Due to injuries and a lack of chemistry, the preseason title co-favorite got swept in the first round of the playoffs, and Howard left for Houston. The Lakers wouldn’t have a winning record until seven years later.
