NBA Offseason Guide 2022 -- How the Brooklyn Nets should approach the offseason

There is no shortage of people to blame for a tumultuous season that ended prematurely for the Brooklyn Nets.

Give Steve Nash credit for managing the locker room in another unstable season. But the coach's job is to put his players in the best position to succeed in close games and make adjustments. Nash and his staff failed on both accounts, letting winnable Games 1 and 2 slide away.

Nash is not the only person that the blame should fall on.

The Nets' two franchise players, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, were not even the two best players in the series. That honor went to the Celtics' Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Even Marcus Smart outplayed the Brooklyn duo.

The James Harden trade last January turned into a disaster, and it was thought the Brooklyn front office saved face when Harden was flipped for Ben Simmons at the trade deadline. The Harden situation was so toxic in Brooklyn that league sources say there was no guarantee he would even suit up if he was on the roster past the deadline.

However, Simmons didn't even play in a game for Brooklyn because of a herniated disc. Simmons was expected to make his Nets debut in Game 4 after a 10-day pain-free ramp up, but was ruled out Sunday after saying he woke up feeling sore.

In hindsight, maybe Brooklyn was better off rolling the dice with an unhappy Harden for the remainder of the season. A Durant, Irving and Harden trio is better than what the Nets had in the Boston series.

Of course, Harden could have walked for nothing in the offseason and then signed with the 76ers, but that would have required Philadelphia to tear down its roster to create cap space.

Outside of the spark by Blake Griffin and Patty Mills in Game 3, none of the players Brooklyn signed or traded for in