NBA Finals 2024: Attention Should Turn to the Brooklyn Nets After Boston Wins

The Boston Celtics defeated the Dallas Mavericks, 106-88, in Game 5 of the 2024 NBA Finals on Monday to capture the franchise’s 18th NBA championship. Jaylen Brown took home Finals MVP, and he and Jayson Tatum have finally silenced the critics, leading the team to victory.

Brooklyn Nets fans can only sigh and watch in disappointment, as their organization is perhaps the sole reason Boston took him the 2024 title. The Celtics might as well send then-Nets GM Billy King a ring, because he was the one who traded the draft picks that would eventually become Tatum and Brown, for aging stars Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett.

Looking back, many thought Brooklyn won the trade, as nobody could have predicted the team to fall that far, resulting in back-to-back top-three picks in 2016 and 2017. However, Pierce and Garnett heavily regressed with the Nets, with the team really being led by Brook Lopez, Deron Williams, and Joe Johnson. Garnett averaged 6.5 points and 6.6 rebounds in 2013-14, while Pierce put up 13.5 points per game.

Is it the worst trade in NBA history? Seeing how Boston’s championship came directly from the Nets’ picks, it just might be. On top of that, Brooklyn got just one second-round playoff run with Pierce and Garnett together, before falling into the NBA’s basement for three seasons, with no draft picks to show for it.

Of course, the Nets would then return to the playoffs for five straight seasons, led by D’Angelo Russell, then Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, but nothing came of it, and the team is now back into NBA purgatory with no draft picks this summer.

In short, this has to be one of the worst trades in NBA history, because it directly brought the Celtics a championship, leaving Brooklyn stranded up to this point. The fact that the Nets sold their future for win-now talent and then saw it fail, only to do it again with James Harden, makes you scratch your head and wonder why they go into the offseason willing to give up even more for a star on the market like Donovan Mitchell or Trae Young.

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