Well, if it’s Irving and Durant to Brooklyn, I get it and can see him moving there, though that’s clearly still not the best team in the East. I think they’re still behind both Toronto and Milwaukee and right there in that grouping with Philly, Boston, and Indiana, though likely the best of that group dependent upon what everyone else does.
Otherwise, what would make Brooklyn more desirable than Boston? Outside of him being spiteful at Boston and Brooklyn being a bigger market, it makes no sense for him to go there if he’s wanting to win.
And that’s why I’ll be fine moving on from Kyrie if he goes to one of the NYK teams by himself. All of his talk about staying here, wanting his name in the rafters, blah, blah, blah, will all prove to be just hollow talk, demonstrating that his head isn’t in the right place to begin with and he’s not the one to lead us to banner 18.
The Nets won 7 less games than Boston this year and that is with LeVert playing only 40 games. Before his injury LeVert liked a real monster in the making. Russell came into his own this year. Allen looks like a real star in the making down low. RHJ is 24, Dinwiddie just turned 26, and Harris is only 27. They just added Prince who is 25. There is a lot of young talent on that team. More than Boston (though Tatum certainly has the highest ceiling, he isn't currently as good as Russell is right now). Boston obviously has Horford and Hayward, but Hayward isn't back yet and may never be and Horford is getting old. In other words, Irving might believe that the Nets are set up to win far longer than Boston is and he might not be wrong.
Yeah, that is some complete, grade-A bologna, Moranis lol
Quantity of talent =/= quality of talent. Not counting Russell, because it makes no sense to pair him and Kyrie and that isn’t happening, the overall talent level may be close to equal due to Brooklyn having more overall younger guys, but the top-end talent is dominated by Boston.
Tatum and Brown are clearly the best of that bunch while also being the youngest and not even near their prime, and to be honest it’s not even that close. Top-end talent wins in this league, and just because a team has a similar cumulative amount of talent does not mean they’re in the same boat as a team with top-end talent (see Celtics from 2015 - 2017).
And all that is not even considering the fact that we have two former All-Stars in Horford abd Hayward, significant draft capital, and the best chance at AD moving forward.
So, no, to any logically thinking person those situations are not anywhere close together. Granted, Kyrie has not always been the most logical person, so...
Brooklyn absolutely thinks Russell and Irving can play together. They might not be able to, but they absolutely believe that. And if you include Russell in the calculus that adds a great deal to the overall talent to the Nets.
Tatum clearly has the highest ceiling (even higher than Russell, but Russell is currently better), but I wouldn't be on Brown being better than Allen. Allen looks like he could be a pretty darn good 2 way big man (and big guys are still more valuable than wings, in part because they are rarer). And LeVert looked like a scoring machine before his injury. Maybe he never recovers as he clearly wasn't the same at the end of the year, but there is clear talent from LeVert. Guys like Dinwiddie, Harris, Prince, etc. don't project as great players, but they are certainly rotation level players on the same talent sphere as guys like Rozier, Morris, Baynes, etc.
The reality is, the Nets talent is being greatly undersold here. They have a lot of young talent on that team.