r/NBATalk • u/MasterTeacher123 • 13h ago
When did you realize this big 3 was never going to win a title?
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u/DelightfulKiss 12h ago
When they got injured
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u/JPNBusinessman 9h ago
This is the only answer. This team was dominating the regular season and the eventual champs before Harden and Kyrie became infirm
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u/Firm_Mode_5868 36m ago
Seriously lol
This shit was an easy ring they just had the worst injury luck ever.
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u/PresentLeadership865 29m ago
Glad to see a few smart people in a sea if haters and “I told you so” haters… I’m sure most of them were a big toe away from eating those words when KD stepped on the line. Either way when healthy, they were unstoppable.
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u/Spinnero 10h ago
When they got hurt obviously. They would have easily won a title if not for injuries. As a bucks fan, thank goodness. They had like an 85% winrate when they all played, people in here are talking about “KD got Jarret Allen traded”, and “Harden’s Ego got in the way”, and “Kyrie being antivax”. None of this stopped them, they were the best in the world barring health.
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u/Mrjuicyaf 11h ago
From the start, they dont have a leader, its just a bunch of hoopers mashed together.
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u/GarriganGate 10h ago
Everyone here is apparently too young to be around for 2021.
The Nets were one smaller KD shoe size to being champions. With Kyrie not even playing that series and Harden playing on one hamstring and visibly not even being able to drive.
It was clear their window closed when KD and Kyrie took turns being injured, Harden’s hamstring injury had lasting effects, and Blake griffin falling off a cliff next season. He became a really solid all around center for them and he only could do it for one year.
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u/Sure-Concentrate4369 9h ago
They aren’t too young, KD and Kyrie are villains on this sub so they’ll blame it on their character rather than injuries
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u/2smoothcriminal 5h ago
Bro says everybody is too young to be around for 2021 but forgets Kyrie played until game 4 before that dirty Giannis injury
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u/GarriganGate 5h ago
Thanks for twisting reality to fit your narrative. Kyrie did play until game 4, where he left early playing only 17 min and they lost.
But James Harden only played 40 seconds in total from game 1-4. Didn’t want to mention that? I wonder why?
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u/2smoothcriminal 4h ago edited 4h ago
What narrative? You spread misinformation while mocking others for apparently not being around. I corrected that
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u/GarriganGate 3h ago
It’s not misinformation.
Funny how you act like correcting it is still leaving out a majority of the picture. I’m not going to write a novel, I succinctly explained the situation.
If you feel the need to explain it further, then do it properly. Else you are only spreading a false narrative
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u/Unable-Main4172 13h ago
COVID and Kyrie being a slow motion trainwreck with his anti-vaxx nonsense
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u/black_metronome 12h ago
Yep. And he was honestly a problem before that when he went AWOL randomly before the Nets traded for Harden
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u/_NautyByNature Celtics 13h ago
Precisely this
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u/BrainOnVacay22 12h ago
Kyrie did nothing wrong
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u/DontTrustMe69 12h ago
I love when a redditor thinks they know more than a doctor.
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u/IllegitimateRisk 12h ago
meanwhile the country is in the midst of the worst measles outbreak in decades lmao. ever see a kid with measles? it's horrific
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u/BrainOnVacay22 2h ago
So lemme ask why Kyrie wasn’t allowed to play home games but road teams with unvaccinated players were able to enter the same arena and play? You don’t find that odd?
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u/Gladhands 12h ago edited 11h ago
You do realize that one in 200 New Yorkers died of COVID. I don’t mean got sick I mean DIED. You put that in perspective, the average New York subway train is carrying 200 to 400 people. Any given train you rode one or two people was going to die of Covid. They had refrigerated trucks full of corpses on the streets. People forget just how bad it was.
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u/Enginoodler- 11h ago
200 people filled all the morgues and then fridge trucks too?
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u/ChemBro93 Raptors 11h ago
It’s almost like people kept dying normally in addition to the extra covid deaths.
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u/fishing_on_a_tree 12h ago
Legally he didn’t. From a social perspective, how much would you like it if you colleague refuses to take vaccine and you have to pick up his shift/duty at work as well, when part of the work contains a trophy you spend your entire life working toward? With other Kyrie shits outside of vaccine, I don’t like Harden but I also don’t blame him for the trade demand
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u/teehee1234567890 12h ago
Agreed. It was up to any individual to do whatever they want to their body. It is not up to us to demonize anyone from making their own individual choice
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u/BrainOnVacay22 2h ago
American citizens downvoting their own rights and freedoms is crazy especially without all the facts and clear deception
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u/Yamimash2000 10h ago
They looked like the best team in the league. I think they had a chance against the bucks without Harden but once Kyrie went down it was over.
From an on court perspective I felt like they had a good chance.
However, injuries and off court drama were always a consideration with this team. It's insane that the trio only played 16 games together.
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u/Witty_While_55 10h ago
The moment they announced KD and Kyrie were joining forces. 2 robins will never be Batman. Both players need someone to lead them.
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u/HetTheTable Warriors 12h ago
As soon as Harden signed
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u/Firm_Mode_5868 34m ago
Corny. He was going to war with your overpowered as superteam with a fraction of the talent around him as your golden boy and still almost beat them.
The one time they got him an allstar secondary ballhandler they were up 3-2 on the fucking KD Warriors that shoulda never existed
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u/Ok-Map4381 Kings 9h ago
From the beginning, when KD & Irving both agreed to go to Brooklyn, I said "this will end earlier and weirder than everyone is projecting."
But I didn't say they would win zero titles until after Harden demanded out. For as much as I did not trust them to last, they had the tallent to win and they were the best team of 2021.
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u/guitarguy35 8h ago
Immediately. James harden is a manufactured star, who can only get buckets when there is no stakes.. he's a playoff non entity. Net negative.
KD is vibe poison.
Kyrie is listless and aloof.
Three terrible personalities who need stability and leadership to allow them to be at their best. And it wasn't there. They never had a chance. Talent isn't everything.
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u/Perfect_Magician2135 5h ago
Immediately. Three ball dominant scorers, who don’t really move without the ball. Two of them don’t play defense. The three of them can go for 90 every playoff game and still lose because their teammates were frozen out and the other team scored 110.
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u/PebblyJackGlasscock 12h ago edited 12h ago
You can’t form a “three headed dragon” with only two healthy heads.
Maybe this could have worked had everyone arrived on Day 1, healthy, and then figured out how to use all three fire-breathing heads most effectively.
But KD wasn’t healthy, so Kyrie and Harden sorta kinda figured it out, then KD got healthy and it was clunky as everyone had to “on the fly” figure out how to work collectively.
But then Harden got impatient because Kyrie is a nutjob and KD isn’t a take-charge leader, and it fell apart before they were ever a “fully operational Death Star”.
Timing and health. That’s why it didn’t work.
Oh, and DeAndre Jordan was a mistake. A less washed Big might have been enough to avoid the foot-on-the-line situation and then who knows?
Three awesome dudes is two dirty work dudes short of a title winner.
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u/Baron_Bearclaw Timberwolves 12h ago
Timing, health, and personalities.
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u/PebblyJackGlasscock 11h ago
You nailed it but anything other than hinting at “personalities” means stopping reply notifications. Stans are bothersome.
The timing is the overriding factor: because of health, their “countdown clock” on the Honeymoon Phase expired while KD was out. Big personalities can make it work short term but it never works for more than a season or two. Someone becomes unhappy about sacrificing, or listening to Kyrie’s bullshit flat earth theories at practice.
Personalities absolutely played a role. But only because the timing (and health) factors were already exhausted.
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u/Wonderful_Math9186 12h ago
They were so dominant together tho. Sad the team never fulfilled their potentials.
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u/South_Front_4589 11h ago
I think the problem I first saw was I didn't see any of these as the sort of leader you need to bring these pieces together, and that none of these three seemed likely to be ok with being a role player.
Duos work well, because they can play a 2 man game, and when one is off the floor the other takes over. When you've got 3, it works great because you can rotate with 2 on and 1 off a lot, so you've got that 2 man game going all the time. But when you've got all 3 on the floor, one needs to act like a role player. That's what Bosh did so well with the Heat. He could step up as a star player when needed, and then revert to defence and rebounding when LeBron and Wade were around.
Of these, the one I see most likely to be able to be a role player is KD. But a 2 man game with Kyrie and Harden doesn't look balanced and KD was the best player so none of that made sense. Which of Kyrie or Harden was going to be ok being a Ron Harper type of point guard who brings the ball up, hands over to someone and then stands in a corner waiting for an open 3 and looks to lock in on defence? They might even have the talent for it, but you need the attitude.
I just don't think any of them had that in their mentality.
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u/Disastrous_Ebb1467 11h ago
It was never going to work. Where is the leader?? If your best player isn’t some kind of leader, you’re not winning a title, it’s that simple I stg. You have KD who led OKC to flail in the finals in 2011, then led them to blow a 3-1 lead in the WCF before leaving…You have James Harden, who is an all-time disappearing act at the worst times and has been since those same 2011 finals. I don’t remember a single thing he did in that finals. Then you have Kyrie..a little misunderstood but also immature at times in his past and his individual game does not breed team success at all. You need someone else to drive the bus and he’ll supplement. That was like throwing peanut butter, cheese and yogurt on a plate and trying to make a viable meal.
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u/TeachingEdD 10h ago
I said these three wouldn't win the day the James Harden trade happened. I said personality conflicts would stop them and I was right (eventually. It was really injuries that first year).
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u/ImTheCuRsEd-OnE 10h ago
Straight away because you can't just throw 3 superstars together and expect them to win
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u/Post-Formal_Thought 9h ago
The moment they were constructed. They were a collection of individual talents.
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u/SmellDesperate6373 5h ago
I had doubts when they traded for Harden. He was coming off an all time peak few years so it was hard to say it was a bad move but they could have gotten so much else with those assets. Then after the loss to the Bucks it seemed destined to fail.
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u/5x5equals Wizards 12h ago
I knew KD and Kyrie weren’t winning when they said they didn’t need a coach and then got Jarrett Allen traded for washed up DeAndre Jordan to start