The Brooklyn Nets had one of the most exciting eras in the franchise’s history begin during the 2019 NBA offseason when the team was able to sign Kevin Durant in free-agency. While any team in the Association would have done whatever it took to sign Durant, hindsight may not look fondly on the signing.
Bleacher Report put together an article in which the staff re-graded some of the biggest signings in the NBA over the past five years and that means that the Nets are on this list. For the signing of Durant, B/R’s staff gave the transaction a C, mostly because of how the move looks now that both parties are in different places.
“The benefit of hindsight does nothing to idealize this era of Nets basketball. It all ended terribly and with plenty of twists and turns. Harden’s trade request came first (2021). Kyrie then extricated himself before the 2023 deadline, and Durant followed suit,” B/R’s Dan Favale wrote. Even though most moves can be looked at in isolation, Durant’s signing has to be looked at in combination with the signing of Kyrie Irving since those moves happened in the same offseason.
“Granted, we can’t ignore that Durant’s arrival prompted Brooklyn to toss away huge swathes of its future in the first place,” Favale wrote. “But as far as missteps go, this one didn’t so much cripple a franchise as complicate it.” For context, when Bleacher Report graded all of the major offseason signings the following year, the staff gave the signing a B.
When it comes to the signing of Durant, it’s one of those moves that brought a new era to Brooklyn and it was one that most fans enjoyed because of how much the league valued the Nets’ chances of winning a title. However, given that not much came out of the superstar era for Brooklyn, it’s hard to look at anything that happened during that time span as anything other than a so-so move.