When Sean Marks was asked about the initial trade rumors surrounding the Nets and James Harden back in March, Brooklyn’s general manager said he “wouldn’t be telling the truth if I said nothing is ever going to happen.”
However, Marks was also asked at the time if he was willing to mortgage the franchise’s future for a star like Harden.
“When you say mortgage, probably no,” Marks said in November. “We want to build something sustainable. The other side is take advantage of what we have now, take advantage of the moment.”
Fast forward to Thursday and the general manager was asked on a Zoom call with reporters about his initial hesitation to make the move.
“I don’t know if there was ever an original hesitance,” Marks said. “I’m not sure where that narrative came from, to be honest. I think this is something you do due diligence on. … The timing was right for us. Any time you get an opportunity to acquire or try to acquire a player of this caliber it’s something you’ve got to look hard at, and it’s certainly something that we did. The process sped up very rapidly and very quickly over the last 48 hours.”
That wasn’t the only backpedaling Marks did. He was also asked about Brooklyn’s culture narrative and the fact the only players left from the culture Nets are Joe Harris and an injured Spencer Dinwiddie.
“Your culture is going to be constantly evolving,” Marks said. “The minute we are stagnant or anybody for that matter in any industry says, ‘hey our culture is what it is, it’s fixed and it’s done,’ I think that’s going to be the demise because other teams, other franchises, other industries will catch up to you.
“I think for us, our goal, ultimately, is to put out a championship contender and have some sustainable success. That’s what we want to do, hence that’s what brought us to this opportunity now. All the different building blocks along the way and out your culture still continues to evolve and how it has evolved over five years.
“What we set out for five years ago with our culture, it was the buzz word — ‘we want to build a culture, we want to build a culture’ — and I think that’s still true to this day. We still want to build a culture. The players may look a little different [and] some of the staff looks a little different, but we have multiple culture-drivers here, and that’s what we’re constantly looking for. They will, hopefully, take us to the next level where this franchise needs to be and wants to be.”
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