The Brooklyn Nets season has served as a fall from grace

When you combine the expectation, anticipation, and ultimate outcome of this Brooklyn Nets season; it’s hard to imagine it as anything but a fall from grace.

As early as one year ago, the Brooklyn Nets of Barclays Center were a feel-good story in the NBA.

D’Angelo Russell and others found refuge behind a franchise who had nothing to lose,  opening their doors to lost talent. They became a feel-good story around the league, a place for players with no hope to turn. A franchise that was hard not to root for.

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But their days as an underdog, or team that’s looked upon with empathy, are over.

Brooklyn swung their bats with aims of a home run on the first day of free agency, and at the time, considered the outcome a hit out of the park. The Nets signed the trio of Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, and veteran big man DeAndre Jordan all to four-year deals.

Finally, things would be better for Brooklyn. Finally, they had their superstars.

Well, finally has yet to come, and it’s taken a toll on how this team and franchise is viewed. To the surprise of none, it seems that Durant won’t be having his “Well what if I told you he’s backstage right now?” moment, making some triumphant return to save the Nets season.

And Irving, even in the games that he’s played, has underwhelmed. The wave of disappointment that crashed over the Brooklyn Nets fandom when his season-ending surgery was announced just weeks ago was felt across the entire league.

Irving played just 20 games this season, and in those, the Nets won just 8 times. That puts them on pace for a 32-to-33 game-winning season on a scale of 82 games. But the impact of Irving’s on-court play can only truly be felt when you factor in their 19-23 record without the guard.

As are always the case with Irving’s teams, the narrative began shifting against his favor. Reports began surfacing about his moodiness in the locker room, and debates on how the Nets would fare without him entirely began to swirl as well. This is the treatment of a team that is home to superstars.

Irving even made comments after a February loss suggesting the Nets will have to make additions in the offseason. It’s hard to pull for a superstar claiming he doesn’t have enough firepower.

And to make matters worse, the Brooklyn Nets team who was supposedly going to better off without Irving has fallen to the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference. They’ve lost five of their last seven, and are clinging to their playoff berth as Jack held on at the end of Titanic.

And their last two games, have been nothing short unorthodox. Brooklyn pulled off an overtime win over the Boston Celtics behind a 51-point explosion from Caris LeVert, and followed that up with a 39-point loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday night.

For all intents and purposes, LeVert’s big night will only serve as another bullet point on their sales pitch around him this summer when as Irving suggested, they’ll undoubtedly hunt for a third piece.

The Washington Wizards are waiting for a bottom end playoff team to slip up, and suddenly, the playoffs don’t look so guaranteed anymore. And instead of fans feeling sorry for that spunky Nets team, the response has been the opposite.

Brooklyn gave up their days of being looked upon with hope, when they became the next in a chain of “villain” franchises to serve as a home base for player empowerment; allowing Durant, Irving, and Jordan to use their cap space as a home for the NBA’s next “superteam.”

The Brooklyn Nets, for what was only a second, had climbed out of the hole dug by former General Manager Billy King and that infamous trade with the Celtics. But only to fall back down a similar hole in terms of morale and motive, despite their immense rise in talent.

This 2019-2020 season has been nothing short of a fall from grace for what was once a team the entire league was rooting for. Instead of the media and fans focusing on how close they came, the higher emphasis until next season will be how far they’ve fallen.