Nets fans are surely drooling over the hot rumor swirling around the Big Apple: James Harden taking his considerable talents to Brooklyn to team up, Avengers-style, with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant.
No matter how many times team sports tweak, tinker, and toy with these superteams, and no matter how many times those teams fall historically flat on their faces, we still get excited about them. We wax romantic over the endless options and possibilities that come with bottomless wells of talent.
While our dominant leagues could not be more different physically, they all work by certain fundamental truths. The best baseball teams draft well, develop players through their vast minor league systems, and shove them from the nest to the field when they're ready. These players are not only young, they're also under contractual control with the team for years before they qualify for arbitration. So you can own the rights to Fernando Tatis Jr. or Bryce Harper or Mike Trout for years before you must dig into your pockets to pay those big bucks.
The NFL is the same - draft smart, develop smarter, and get at least four years of a player's prime before you either sign a second contract or slap the player with a franchise tag. And, when proper, you sprinkle these young rosters with veteran talent, wisdom, and leadership. But it all starts at the bottom floor, the foundation, getting players at 20 or 21 years old.
The NBA is slightly different in that they dress about half the players you find on an MLB club (15 versus 26), and about 30 percent an NFL roster (53 players). The NBA is also different in that there are only five players on the floor during live action, so one player has a greater impact on a hardwood than he would on a diamond or gridiron.
But the maxims of team development apply to all pro sports. The NBA would be better served to draft their best players. Look at all the NBA dynasties, and they were carried by homegrown stars. Boston did it with Larry Bird. The Lakers did it with Magic Johnson and James Worthy (while trading for Kareem). The Bulls blossomed with Jordan and Pippen. The Lakers drafted Kobe then added Shaq. The Spurs were buoyed by Tim Duncan, David Robinson, and Kawhi Leonard. Even the Warriors, Durant's last team, were built on the backs and gifts of Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green. Durant merely made a great team an impossibly great team. And while Toronto was a great story, led by Leonard, they had ample pieces in place without him. Plus you'll notice the Raptors went 53-19 after he fled Canada. Once Leonard left to build his own superteam - joining Paul George in Los Angeles - the Clippers lost in unexpected ways and fell unacceptably short of a title.
The lone exception to this, of course, is LeBron James. Wherever the King goes, the ring goes. But, to borrow from the Matrix, LeBron is the anomaly. He is Neo. He is the jewel of Morpheus's Homeric journey to find The One.
In other words, unless you have a selfless NBA savant like LeBron, who's built like a tight end, never gets injured, never seems to age, and plays chess while the rest play checkers, then don't use King James as the model for anything but a Bible. There are unicorns in sports, but there's a reason they're called unicorns: because they are impossibly rare or one-of-a-kind.
The problem with all this, in terms of what's going on in New York, is that instead of unicorns, their potential Big 3 are also Biblical – as in the Garden of Eden. Kyrie Irving has been a team-killer wherever he goes. Kevin Durant loves being a leader so much that he fled Oklahoma City as fast as he could to play under the protection of a 73-win team. And James Harden is so sublime at winning that he hasn't sniffed the NBA Finals since his salad days in OKC. Indeed, Harden is alternately known as being too gassed or too much of a gunner to lead a team to an NBA title.
But the Nets need to do this, just for the neon appeal of it. There won't be a more exciting story in NYC then watching three future Hall of Famers play musical chairs with the ball, the shot selection, and the leadership. It's a tabloid dream, a story too good and too big just for Page Six. Plus the Nets can do the one thing that has eluded them since they moved from the ABA in the 1970s: bump the Knicks off the back page and own the bold ink. That alone could make this bionic group worthwhile.
Indeed, maybe the endless stooges who bungle that basketball team at MSG - the edifice formerly known as the Mecca of Basketball - need a public kick in the rump from the team in Brooklyn. Maybe rock bottom is playing second fiddle to your forgotten brothers from another borough. The Nets have tried to supplant the Knicks so many times it seemed impossible that they could ever get access to the penthouse of Gotham's basketball scene.
The Nets deserve a winner after all these forlorn, frozen winters. This is quite likely going to fail. But it will be fun, something we haven't had in the Big Apple for nearly two decades. And if it finally slaps the Knicks silly, and awakens them into some form of competence, all the better. Don't bet on either happening. But it will be a blast to watch.
Follow Jason Keidel on Twitter: @JasonKeidel
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