What does Durant, Irving staying in Brooklyn mean for top of East?

The NBA schedule makers had no idea what to do with the Brooklyn Nets. On paper, a team from the nation’s largest media market with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving should be pushing the Warriors for most nationally televised games (30) — and they should be title contenders. But with Durant’s trade request hanging out there while the schedule was put together, the Nets got 13 national games and just one on ABC. They do not play on Christmas.

The schedule makers would like a mulligan.

And the rest of the Eastern Conference should be worried.

Durant and the Nets have put aside their differences (for now), the trade demands are off the table, and both Durant and Irving will join Ben Simmons in Nets training camp in five weeks.

The Nets instantly move into the top tier in the East with the Celtics and Bucks, plus both the 76ers and Heat can make a strong case they should be in that conversation (although Philadelphia and Miami have a few more questions to answer to prove they belong in the top tier).

The Nets have questions, too, but this roster is unquestionably stacked with championship talent. Four-fifths of the starting and closing lineups are locked in: Irving will start at the point, Joe Harris will provide spacing on the wing, Durant will be option No.1, and Ben Simmons will be a point-forward and secondary attack option. The fifth player in that mix could depend on the matchup — Seth Curry for more shooting, Nic Claxton for defense, maybe Royce O’Neal for wing defense or Patty Mills for more ball handling. If T.J. Warren is healthy and playing like his bubble-self, he could be the fifth Beatle in the closing lineups. Coach Steve Nash will have options.

Make no mistake, the Nets have critical questions to answer: • After