09.07.2023, 04:02 - hju - Rank 4 - 165 Posts
With getting traded to Dallas and going to Phoenix, the superteam are officially blown up. What a me s this whole Brooklyn era was. It inspired me to start thinking about the biggest superteam flops of the past decade. Here's what I came up with.When the Brooklyn Nets signed Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant in the summer of 2019, then added in 2021, they were immediately regarded as one of the most talented teams in history, and it was expected they would become one of the actual best teams in history.Instead, they won a total of one playoff series in three years and were swept twice over that span, first by the in 2020, then by Boston last year. All told, the Nets went 7-13 in playoff games during the Durant-Irving era, and 7-9 with all three superstars on the roster.Not that we saw much of Durant, Irving and Harden together. When we did, they were as advertised. They took out the in five in the first round of the 2021 playoffs and went up 2-0 on the in the next round. But James Harden ripped up his hamstring in Game 1 of that Milwaukee series, and by the time he got back on the court, he looked like a guy gimping around with a nail stuck in his leg. Meanwhile, Irving went down in Game 4 with a sprained ankle and never returned. Durant did all he could to try to carry the Nets to the conference Taylor Decker Jersey finals, but you know the deal. Durant's game-winning 3-pointer became a game-tying 2-pointer because the toe of his size 18 shoe was on the line. The game went into overtime. The Nets lost. Then proceeded to come completely unraveled.Harden got traded for , who only added to the circus. Kyrie started, well, acting like Kyrie. Durant demanded Doak Walker Jersey a trade, then took it back when Steve Nash was fired. Jacque Vaughn came in and it looked like things were coming together for a hot minute, but then Kyrie went Kyrie again after he wasn't happy with Brooklyn's contract offer. He demanded a trade, which was granted. Now he's in Dallas, and Durant was subsequently traded Wednesday night to the .So let's recap: The Nets started with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving in 2019. They added James Harden in 2021. Then the Durant-Irving-Harden trio turned into Durant-Irving-Simmons. Then, for a second, that turned into a Durant-Simmons duo. Now, it's just Simmons. The good news is the Nets don't have to deal with Kyrie anymore, and they got a haul of draft picks and a budding All-Star in to kickstart their rebuild. But man, what a disaster their superteam turned out to be. An all-time NBA failure.This wasn't as bad as the trading for (which we'll get to shortly), but the Nets trading for and Kevin Garnett in the summer of 2013 was an error of similar thinking.Garnett and Pierce were only superstars in name by D.J. Chark Jersey this point, and pairing them with and was a shot in the dark that mi sed historically badly. Pierce wound up averaging just 13.5 points per game that year, a career-low at the time, and Garnett also finished with career-lows of 6.5 points and 6.6 rebounds per game. The Nets won a first-round series and then got eliminated by Miami's Big 3 in the conference semis.Eight months later, Pierce, Garnett and Jason Terry, who also came from Boston in the deal, were all gone. As we know, things turned out much better for the Celtics, who used the 2016 pick received from Brooklyn to select , and Brooklyn's 2017 pick as part of the package shipped to Philadelphia for the No. 3 pick that became .The Lakers put all their eggs in a superstar basket when they traded for Ru sell Westbrook in the summer of 2021, putting him alongside and . There was only one problem with this: Ru sell Westbrook isn't a superstar anymore. He's not an All-Star anymore. He's arguably not even good anymore. As it turned out for the Lakers, the most valuable service he could offer was to be a bench guy, and even then he was detrimental. Meanwhile, Davis couldn't stay on the court and the supporting cast that Rob Pelinka put around LeBron was as small as it was deficient. Mercifully, the experiment of piling up big names like an inexperienced fantasy football manager came to an end when Westbrook was traded to the on Wednesday.All told, the Lakers end this "superteam" era with a 58-79 record and no playoff appearances over a season and a half. A total bust ... that everyone except the Lakers saw coming. CBS Sports HQ Newsletter Your Ultimate Guide to Every Day in Sports We bring sports news that matters to your inbox, to help you stay informed and get a winning edge. I agree to receive the "CBS Sports HQ Newsletter" and marketing communications, updates, special offers (including partner offers), and other information from CBS Sports and the Paramount family of companies. By pre sing sign up, I confirm that I have read and agree to the and acknowledge Paramount's . Please check the opt-in box to acknowledge that you would like to subscribe. Thanks for signing up! Keep an Ryan McCollum Jersey eye on your inbox. Sorry! There was an error proce sing your subscription. The Lakers made a desperate play to put a superteam together in the summer of 2012, adding Steve Nash and to a roster that already included Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol. But in keeping with the theme of the day, Nash was no longer anything close to a superstar and Howard was a disastrous fit with the maniacally committed Bryant. This thing never even got off the ground. Nash and Howard dealt with injuries all season, and by the end, Bryant was trying to will the Lakers into the playoffs before tearing his Achilles. They snuck into the field, only to be swept by San Antonio, which went on to win the title, in the first round.Ru sell Westbrook was coming off his MVP campaign in which he averaged a triple-double, and OKC decided it was time to get him some help after Kevin Durant had bolted to Golden State the previous summer.Enter and . George was a superstar. Anthony, by that point, was not. The rhythm of the team was never there. Anthony had yet to accept what would become a bench role with Portland and the Lakers at later stops, and his ball-stopping ways and contested jumpers wore out their welcome quickly. The Thunder weren't a bad team. They won 48 games and got into the playoffs as the No. 4 seed, but they were knocked out in the first round by the Jazz. The next season, with Anthony gone, the Thunder lost again in the first round, this time to Portland in five games with sending them packing with one of the nastiest walk-off game-winners in history.George was eventually traded to the . Westbrook was eventually traded to the . And the Thunder began Derrick Barnes Jersey what is looking like an awesome rebuild. But It started painfully, with a failed superteam. Click here Click here Click here
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