From superteam to superflops: who is to blame for the Nets’ playoff humbling?

The Brooklyn Nets began this season as many experts’ favorites to reach the NBA finals from the Eastern Conference. Instead, they were swept by the Boston Celtics in the first-round of the playoffs. All that’s left now is to try to figure out what went wrong in Brooklyn.

The Nets began this season with a Big Three: a theoretically healthy Kevin Durant, a theoretically on-the-court Kyrie Irving and a one-time NBA MVP in James Harden, who was acquired the previous January in a trade with the Houston Rockets. It was a high-risk move to bring these talented veterans together, given that they had all fallen out with their previous franchises.

To nobody’s shock, the trio didn’t last, and it was Harden who left. With their options limited in getting a potential impact All-Star in a Harden deal, they arranged a malcontent swap with the Philadelphia 76ers, which brought them back tremendously gifted, defense-first big man Ben Simmons.

The Nets’ gamble was based upon the idea that Simmons was only holding out from playing because his relationship with the Sixers had disintegrated after his infamous offensive collapse during last year’s playoffs. As it turns out, it was more than that: Simmons’s absence was due to both physical and mental health issues that ultimately prevented him from playing a single minute in Brooklyn this season.

Yes, in the long run, the Nets may have something in the Simmons acquisition. With that said, being forced to make the Harden deal and settling with this particular return hurt Brooklyn’s chances of success this year.

The main reason Harden was fed up with his situation in Brooklyn? Well, it couldn’t help that he was dealing with the endless circus that was Irving’s battle with the City of New York.