Kyrie Irving hopes to help Nets develop culture that outlasts his own career

Kyrie Irving has only been back for one game and he’s already thinking about the future of Brooklyn Nets basketball.

Kyrie Irving showed no signs of rust in his 20-minute performance on Sunday, despite having missed almost exactly two months of play with a right shoulder impingement. As a result, the Brooklyn Nets torched the Atlanta Hawks, cruising to a 108-86 win after taking a season-best 70-46 lead at halftime.

Now, the Hawks have the worst record in the NBA at 8-32, but the Nets still played with a sort of freedom they’ve not displayed for a while. Caris LeVert provided a lift with his return, though Irving brought Brooklyn with something different.

This is what the point guard hopes to do: make a significant impact on the franchise. And not just for the rest of his playing days.

Irving wants Brooklyn to among those teams to strive for a title yearly:

We just have a lot of teaching, a lot more teaching to be done. Specifically for, kind of, our younger players. But we’ll just continue to build what the Brooklyn Nets culture is. I think that’s still yet to be defined. We have a chance to define it with the guys that are in our locker room here. Obviously, we play hard, but the culture here is we want to be a championship-level organization, and we want to do that for the next few years of us competing, and when I’m done playing basketball that this culture here will still be consistent. That’s what I’m after. That’s a long-term goal. But it starts here with being for the guys, being present, being a leader out there. Allowing guys to work on their own game and work on their mental aptitude.

The Nets get back to work on Tuesday in their first game of a back-to-back, when the Utah Jazz visit Barclays Center.

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