What if Harden and Kyrie Irving didn’t get injured in the 2021 playoffs?

What if Harden and Kyrie Irving were not injured in the 2021 playoffs? What if Kevin Durant equalized with a turn jumper in Game 7 against the Milwaukee Bucks, his foot didn't touch the 3-point line? What if Irving did not refuse to get the COVID-19 vaccine, the Nets' Samsung experiment came to an abrupt end?

But all of these assumptions went the wrong way, and so did Harden's deal. In exchange for 11/2 dramatic seasons, where there are more assumptions than actual wins, the Nets traded Jarrett Allen, Carris LeVere, three first-round picks and four swap rights (two of whom did not end up being trained).

Houston has used its lucrative return to pick Tari Ethan and Reed Shepard and helped trade Durant from the Suns. There is more to do; in later trades, the Nets also had to give Houston more draft picks to regain some of their options, and once they realized that the Durant Harden-Irving era was over, they needed tanks.

To make things worse, when Harden asked for a trade in 2022 and the Nets succumbed to the core of their return was Ben Simmons, who never regained the two-way value that made him the NBA All-Series in 2020. Simmons averaged 76 points per game during his tenure as the Sixers and only 6.5 points per game during the Nets’ available period.