Brooklyn Nets Lost 6 Superstars After Making Terrible Trades And Decisions

Damian Lillard, Jayson Tatum, and Jaylen Brown were former Nets draft picks who the franchise traded away before getting the chance to use them, while James Harden, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Durant were teammates who have gone on to pastures new.

Let's take a look at what the Nets did with each one of these players and if they ever got anything out of it.

The Draft Picks

Damian Lillard, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown

The first deal here took place in August 2012 when the then-New Jersey Nets traded away Mehmet Okur, Shawne Williams, and a 2012 First-Round draft pick for the services of Gerald Wallace to the Portland Trail Blazers. That pick wound up being Damian Lillard, who would go on to set the Blazers' franchise record for scoring and become a legend.

Lillard is one of the standout point guards of his generation, averaging 25.1 points, 4.3 rebounds, and 6.8 assists over his career while being named to nine All-Star games. The Nets didn't even know what they could have had as they made this deal, but they did give away this pick in a midseason trade that went completely awry. This is a theme of the franchise.

This would repeat itself in arguably the worst trade in modern NBA history. In July 2013, the Nets decided to trade Gerald Wallace, Kris Humphries, Keith Bogans, MarShon Brooks, Kris Joseph, a 2014 first-round pick, a 2016 first-round pick, a 2018 first-round pick, and a 2017 first-round pick swap to the Boston Celtics for Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Jason Terry, and D.J. White. 

Pierce and Garnett were well past their primes and never led the Nets to anything resembling championship success. Meanwhile, the 2016 first-round pick wound up being reigning Finals MVP Jaylen Brown, and the 2017 first-round pick swap led to the Celtics landing Jayson Tatum. 

Tatum went on to become a perennial MVP candidate while Brown went on to become a perennial All-Star and the winner of Finals MVP in the Celtics' eventual title success, based on the picks the Nets sent them in a failed trade.

Losing Lillard, Tatum, and Brown all in trades within the span of one season is shocking. It'd be mocked forever if the team didn't show signs of life with a potential title contender in 2019, but even that core would collapse before they could have any real success.

The Players They Moved On From

James Harden, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant

The Nets' sins of the 2010s seemed to be immaterial in the summer of 2019 when they got both Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant to sign as free agents to lead a core of players who just made the NBA Playoffs to championship glory. Both Durant and Irving missed most of the 2019-20 season due to injury, with the team changing dramatically at the start of next season with the acquisition of James Harden.

The Nets embraced an aggressive win-now timeline which saw multiple core rotational players be moved to accommodate Durant, Irving, and Harden. However, injuries led to a disastrous 2021 Playoff run where they lost in the second round before the COVID-19 vaccine mandate led to Kyrie sitting out for most of the 2021-22 season.

Harden would demand a trade and be moved to the Philadelphia 76ers for picks and Ben Simmons, with Simmons being bought out of his contract this winter by the Nets. Irving would be traded a year later in February 2023 to the Dallas Mavericks for Spencer Dinwiddie, Dorian Finney-Smith, and a first-round pick. 

Durant got them fantastic value in return. He was dealt primarily for Cam Johnson, Mikal Bridges, and five first-round picks to the Phoenix Suns. This allowed them to undo the Harden trade and then reacquire crucial picks from the Houston Rockets and then flip Mikal Bridges to the Knicks for six first-round picks. 

The Irving and Harden trades didn't materialize in core future assets, but the Durant trade has set them up for years to come. Hopefully, they can actually use their picks to rebuild the franchise instead of watching elite talent they could have had dominate for other franchises in the NBA.