Before Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving signed with the Nets, former Brooklyn forward Jared Dudley did his part to help deliver the franchise the two superstars when he told DeAndre Jordan about the proximity of the team’s training facility to Barclays Center.
While he thinks that perk was important, Dudley still believes the New York Knicks should have had a major advantage over the Nets in the free agency process, and its the Knicks’ own fault Durant and Irving call Barclays Center home and not Madison Square Garden, which he explained to Michael Lee of The Athletic
… let’s be honest, if the Knicks are run right, the Knicks get them easily. It’s not even close. If the Knicks are run halfway decent, they get KD and Kyrie. Like, literally had to do everything right and got them.
Dudley also told The Athletic he wasn’t surprised the Nets and Kenny Atkinson parted ways, “because there’s so much back channels” in the NBA.
It’s such a politic business and such a players’ league. This wasn’t KD, Kyrie chose Kenny Atkinson and Sean Marks. These two chose the Brooklyn Nets because the infrastructure. Now a lot of that had to do with them, for sure. You’re not going to choose a bad GM who doesn’t know what he’s doing, so Sean Marks played a huge part. It’s a new owner. That ownership just came in this season, so they’re a part of the building process. They literally got here when, not when it was completed, but going in the right direction. You have Billy King and the Russian billionaire and they’re trading everything, all the top picks, considered one of the worst trades of all time getting all these first-round picks for them. They weren’t there. You’re having a new ownership. They got Kyrie, KD, but [those two] are looking at it like, ‘They got young talent, cap space, new facility and they’re in New York.’
Dudley also added:
… when Kenny gets fired, you go, ‘OK, from a coaching standpoint, not having KD and Kyrie, Caris [LeVert] hurt 20-something games.’ You look at their talent level, obviously, they’re seventh seed in the East. If they had Gregg Popovich, they would’ve had a better seed. Players win. You have to have certain talent. Now, they’re thinking, it’s stylistic. The style of Kenny, does it match KD and Kyrie? And when you look at it, I can see there would’ve been some growing [pains], there would’ve been some challenges. But I just don’t know, because if you would’ve told me Steve Kerr was going to come out of the booth and go right to coaching and they’re going to win championships, we all would’ve said it’s crazy. But when you have the talented players, anything can happen.
Still, Dudley thinks Atkinson deserved a chance to work with Durant and Irving.
Kenny Atkinson could’ve made it work.