Nets teach Knicks tough lesson on way to ruling the city

Good for the Nets. Good for Brooklyn. Good for New York. It is important to remember today what the Nets were like yesterday, the profound wasteland that Sean Marks inherited when he agreed to take over the team three years ago, because it must serve as a reminder that a smart GM and a smart plan can trump a whole acre of impediments — and the fattest of neighboring fat cows, too.

If the Nets can rise from 20-62 to a marquee destination in less time that it takes to serve out a mayoral term, it tells you all you need to know about the power of patience and resolve. Those seem to be lessons that Marks’ counterparts on the other side of the East River are starting to learn, the hard way.

But the hard way is OK. The hard way is how this all started with Marks, and with Kenny Atkinson, the coach/consiglieri who is Marks’ extension on the practice court and the sideline. The Nets had no choice, of course, having ransomed so much of their future to the Celtics the last time they tried to make a brazen move.

That was different. That was a couple of old champions, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett, who had to be talked into the idea of trading Celtic green for Brooklyn black, and it was clear from their first moments in the borough that neither man really wanted to be here. They won a playoff series together, in 2014, but it was a joyless slog.

This is something else. This is a couple of prime-age players, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant, choosing the Nets, choosing Brooklyn, choosing to team up and try to make a forever splash in the Borough of Churches.

This isn’t the first time the Nets franchise has gone after a prize this strongly. Rick Barry came to the Nets and nearly delivered an ABA title. Julius Erving came one months shy of 46 years ago and did win two titles, which was the only other time the Nets came this close to usurping the Knicks for star power and success. Rod Thorn traded for Jason Kidd on draft night 2001, and two trips to the NBA Finals followed.

And there was the ill-fated Boston Massacre Deal.

But that feels like it happened decades ago now. Marks started building from the ashes and never lost faith in what his mission was. The first payoff came this past season when 8-18 became 42-40 and a first-round date with the Sixers that wasn’t without its thrilling moments. More than the change in winning percentage, though, came a year-long pronouncement, to all who would listen, that a culture change had taken place, too.

It was a message that landed in Boston, where Irving spent the last two years, and in Oakland, where Durant was merrily motoring toward a third straight title before his Achilles blew. And it resounded Sunday, when the two men agreed to four-year contracts totaling a combined $205 million.

It is a blockbuster for the Nets any way you dissect it, though it comes with more than a modicum of risk. Irving, who has a history of knee woes, wore out his welcome quickly in Boston, which came within a few minutes of qualifying for the NBA Finals a year ago without him and was a second-round playoff flameout this year with him.

Durant? We’ve talked about little else for weeks. He will sit out next year. He will be 32 when he comes back. There is absolutely no telling how good a player he will be when he comes back, and that is a gamble that an already-established team like the Nets could afford to take far more than the Knicks …

(And now, a word or three about the Knicks: I have consistently fallen on the side that they needed to keep away from Durant, post-Achilles. I believe it is still the right thing. But that doesn’t mean Sunday wasn’t also an epic low point in franchise history. We’ll never know how the dice would’ve shaken out if Durant were healthy, but it’s irrelevant now. He is a Net, not a Knick. He picked Brooklyn over Manhattan. Regardless of anything else, those facts sting. Julius Randle and Taj Gibson are nice players, especially Randle. This isn’t what anyone envisioned a month ago.

Whether the Knicks admitted it or not, they tanked a whole season on the 14 percent chance the lottery would shake Zion Williamson their way; didn’t happen. They tried to soften the blow of what was, at its core, a calamitous sideways turn in the team’s relationship with Kristaps Porzingis by focusing on all the cap space that transaction freed up; now there is little to show for any of that besides Dennis Smith Jr., lots of unused money that’ll now be allocated who knows where, and some future draft picks.)

So the heaviest lifting of all still awaits Scott Perry.

It is just the kind of sweat equity Sean Marks has already employed, and it culminated with a Sunday afternoon that really felt like the Nets’ first real steps to assume control of the city’s basketball soul. They didn’t capture a title Sunday. They did start to win over some hearts and minds. That’s some start.

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