Chris Anstey: How Patty Mills and Ben Simmons may help salvage Brooklyn Nets NBA disaster

They are age-old dilemmas of recruitment.

Do you value top-end talent over your culture and hope that star players will fit in with your system? Do you hand over the decision-making and trust supreme talents to do the right thing by the club, in order to convince them to sign and stay?

Kevin Durant is a supreme talent – arguably one of the top 10 basketball players ever. Last season, at 33 years old, Durant averaged more than 30 points per game at an elite level of efficiency for the Brooklyn Nets.

I have the utmost respect for Durant as a player. Also Kyrie Irving. I marvel at their skillsets.

Yet I would never want them on any team that I was a part of building. Nets owner Joe Tsai now reportedly feels similarly, having seen his team destroyed by self-centred superstars.

In 2018-19, coach Kenny Atkinson led the Nets to a 42-40 record, good enough for sixth place in the Eastern Conference. Wildly undermanned on paper, the team played hard at both ends of the floor, celebrated each other’s success from the bench and exceeded expectations by making the playoffs.

As the Nets were building from the ground up, Durant was winning championships with Golden State, yet never seemed to fully embrace the culture created by coach Steve Kerr and stars Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green; all high-profile draftees in a successful Warriors rebuild that focused on bringing in the right people.

Cracks started to form in relationships throughout the 2018-19 season. Brooklyn took their opportunity to sign a generational talent, despite Durant snapping his Achilles in the Warriors’ NBA Finals loss to Toronto. D’Angelo Russell, a fellow No.2 draft pick, went to Golden State in a sign-and-trade for Durant.

Brooklyn knew that it would cost them a league maximum salary of more than $US40 million to have Durant not play a single game during his first season as a Net. They risked the uncertainty of his recovery from a major injury on the wrong side of 30. They signed Irving, who had just blown up the Boston Celtics’ rebuilding plan by demanding a trade.

To get this done, the Nets traded away many of the players who had built such a strong culture and fired the coach who had driven it, instead bringing in former MVP Steve Nash for his first head coaching role. They also signed Durant’s good friend DeAndre Jordan, whose productivity had been declining for years, to an incredible $US40 million contract.

Fair to say, the Nets went all-in for Kevin Durant.

In the two seasons Durant played, the powerhouse NBA franchise the Nets brought in Kevin Durant to build won just one playoff series. Durant and Irving played just 33 games together over three years.

They brought in former MVP James Harden, then traded him away per his request as team chemistry hit an all-time low; only to get fellow disgruntled star Ben Simmons who, like Irving, routinely elected not to play. The Australian still hasn’t suited up for Brooklyn.

Each time that the Nets recruited a superstar in their attempt to get closer to an NBA championship, the team and club culture declined. The positive, collective environment that the 2018-19 Nets created was long gone and in its place, a trail of superstar-led destruction.

Now, after ruining the Nets, both Durant and Irving want out. Part of me hopes that they are forced to stay in Brooklyn and can change. Remember, Kobe Bryant went on to win two more championships in Los Angeles after the Lakers declined his 2007 trade demand.

It’s time for the Brooklyn Nets to follow in the footsteps of the Golden State Warriors and Milwaukee Bucks and take back full control of player recruitment. They need their stars – whether they remain Durant and Irving, or incoming traded players – to trust the club to build a successful team around them.

It may very well start with our Aussie superstar Patty Mills.

Mills famously invested time and resources into our Australian Boomers team culture in the lead-up to the Tokyo Olympics, ultimately leading to our nation’s first ever men’s Olympic medal. Wherever the team went, Australian, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island flags hung. Only Australian music played. Stories were told of past Olympic teams. Players were educated about Australian history and taught the importance of elite team behaviours. The team was invested in each other, where they had come from and those who came before them.

Right now, with the challenges of diversity, ego and salaries, these are just words in many NBA teams, headlined by the Nets. Mills has seen first-hand now the difference between the San Antonio Spurs and the Brooklyn Nets. He’s driven our national team’s culture. He has the opportunity to create his own NBA legacy piece: leading the Brooklyn Nets out of self-imposed ruins and back to a championship contender.

Whether Durant and Irving stay, or whether trades are made, Ben Simmons will likely remain in Brooklyn. For the first time in over a year, Ben’s off-court decisions aren’t headlines. While nobody is looking, Mills and Simmons have an incredible opportunity to champion change; Mills as the driver, Simmons by improving himself as a teammate and locking into an off-season driven by team success.

At his best, Ben Simmons is an NBA All Star; one of the best defenders and open court players in the world. Patty Mills is an NBA champion and world-class scorer. If healthy, and if Simmons remains in Brooklyn, both will contribute on court to the Nets winning regular season games when October rolls around. The biggest question mark hanging over them is whether they can contribute enough to put the Nets in a position to win playoff games.

The first time we see Simmons in a team training session, and the first time he chooses to speak, we will know. It’s not exactly an opportunity for Ben to make a positive first impression but given the basketball world’s lowly impression of him, it’s close.

Nets owner Joe Tsai was recently reported as saying that he would rather have a team he is proud to be a part of that wins 40 games than a more talented team he is not proud to be a part of. Perhaps it is for this reason that, through the turmoil, the Nets elected to extend and increase Mills’ contract. He is surely a player the Nets are proud to have in their organisation, and one whose responsibility for the success of his club lies in his ability to communicate with and educate teammates who have often been happy to speak, but reluctant to listen.

I can’t wait for the Brooklyn Nets’ first media day.