Of all the exchanges concluded on the last day of the NBA basketball championship, the most relevant one involved two of the main teams in the East, the Brooklyn Nets and the Philadelphia 76ers. The former took three players from Philadelphia: big forward Ben Simmons, center Andre Drummond and small forward Seth Curry – brother of the more famous Steph – in exchange for James Harden, one of the best players in the league, and the great forward Paul Millsap.
Brooklyn has thus dissolved the so-called “big three”, the trio of champions he had formed in recent years and of which Harden was a part along with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. In the past season and in the first half of the current one, however, the Nets trio had had few opportunities to play together, between frequent absences due to injuries and the unavailability of Irving, initially excluded as not vaccinated and now used only in games away, because in New York the law does not allow it.
Last season Brooklyn ended the playoffs in the second round, defeated by the Milwaukee Bucks, then title winners. She then started the current one as a favorite, but last night in Washington she suffered her tenth consecutive defeat.
The Philadelphia 76ers are doing better, but they started the season with a problem to solve. The Australian Ben Simmons, one of the most important players in previous seasons, after being questioned a bit by everyone for the bad performances in the 2021 playoffs, had tried to change teams in the summer, but without succeeding. He had therefore refused to be part of the group and this season has never played, accruing a fine of over 10 million dollars on the approximately 30 received annually.
The Brooklyn Nets have a new big three ???? pic.twitter.com/zboo5oKpB1
— ESPN (@espn) February 10, 2022
Taking advantage of Harden’s openness to a possible team change – anticipated by its intention to evaluate offers at the end of the season – Philadelphia then got rid of an out-of-team player, and sold a starter (Curry) and a player of the so-called rotation ( Drummond), to go and improve his starting lineup with one of the best scorers in the league.
However, Harden is also 32 years old, and in recent seasons he has shown a progressive decline in form. Simmons, on the other hand, is 25 years old, he was elected the best rookie in the league just four years ago and is now considered a top-level player. The Nets also managed to avoid losing Harden to zero in the summer and to include in the exchange two choices in the first rounds of the next draft, partially recovering those sold two seasons ago to the Houston Rockets precisely to sign Harden.
At the moment, when we’re not yet halfway through the regular season, the Sixers are fifth in the Eastern team rankings, while the Nets are eighth. Eight will qualify for the mid-April playoffs, in addition to eight from the West.
– Read also: It took the Brooklyn Nets nearly twenty years
