When the KD/Kyrie news hit, it struck me what a great job Sean Marks has done in Brooklyn. They were awful and had no hope when he arrived, and in three years he a built them into a good young team this year. And though they lose a couple of those guys, they add Kyrie and (in a year) KD. Here's a longer summary on the job Marks has done, from the Ringer:
Go Bears!Quote:
Marks took over the Nets in February of 2016, midway through a 21-61 season, with their first-round picks in the next three drafts all burning a hole in Danny Ainge's pocket. In three and a half years, he has transformed Brooklyn from a superfund site into a superstar destination.
He hired Kenny Atkinson, renowned for his player development work as an assistant with the Hawks, to be his head coach, and he gave him time. He flipped established players for lower-tier first-round picks, turning Thaddeus Young into Caris LeVert and Bojan Bogdanovic into Jarrett Allen. He trusted his scouting and took chances, landing contributors like Joe Harris and Spencer Dinwiddie after other teams had passed on them. He took advantage of teams desperate to shed too-rich deals, renting out cap space in exchange for young players and picks to land prospects like Rodions Kurucs, Dzanan Musa, and D'Angelo Russell, who'd become Brooklyn's first All-Star in years.
Marks took what looked like salted earth and made it fertile again. Year-over-year growth and improvement turned the Nets into a surprise playoff team, one with a definable culture and style of playa team, it seemed, with everything you could ask for in a could-be contender except the megawatt star talent that can take you from good to great. Now, thanks to the investments Marks made and the changes he's sparked, they've got that.
Whether this all pans out very much remains to be seen. Kyrie, as you might have heard, is a particular sort with a range of peccadilloes to consider and monitor. How Durant bounces back from the most devastating injury a basketball player can suffer is anybody's guess. Marks has made a very big bet that what he's built is strong enough to sustain the seismic shift that comes with hitting the gas pedal and pushing for title contention. That he's even in position to push all his chips in, though, just three and a half years after taking the reins, is absolutely astonishing.
