Nets general manager Sean Marks met with the media on Friday for his first news conference since the blockbuster trade that sent James Harden and Paul Millsap to the Philadelphia 76ers in exchange for Ben Simmons, Seth Curry, Andre Drummond, and two first-round picks.
Here are the takeaways...
Steve Nash adamantly denied that Harden was going anywhere, but discussions between Marks and Harden, as well as Marks and 76ers' Daryl Morey, had picked up over the last few days.
The talks were brief to start, Marks said, but "moved relatively quickly" within this week, and Marks said Harden was honest with Nets brass about what he desired.
"I give James a lot of credit for having open dialogue, open discussions with me and with the group, Steve and [owner] Joe Tsai and everybody over the last 24, 48 hours. They’re not easy, but I think that’s something we pride ourselves on is being open and honest. James was honest with us and we were honest with him," Marks told the media.
Marks insisted that the decision to trade Harden was solely up to him, Harden, and Tsai. Marks told the players what was about to go down, but it seems like he let them know once everything was just about finalized.
So Durant and Irving had no direct implications on the trade talks, according to Marks, but at this point, it's not a secret Irving's lack of availability might have set Harden off.
Marks steered clear of speaking for the now former Net.
"That was never explicitly expressed from him. I think the most frustrated person in this whole thing is Kyrie," Marks said, "I mean, Kyrie is frustrated with the fact that he’s not able to be out there. I mean, all our conversations have been like, ‘Look I want to be there, I want to be around the team.’ He’s obviously hoping for things to look different in the future here and for him to be able to participate in home and road games. So again, there’s a factor of a few things. I probably wouldn’t be honest with myself if I thought we weren’t all frustrated with the ability that they couldn’t be together on the court at one time and that being one of the reasons, sure. Another is obviously injuries. We’ve seen Kevin have injuries. We’ve seen James have injuries. So, there’s a lot of factors going into unfortunately why we haven’t seen those three together."
“Obviously you guys have seen and watched us play and you see where some of our holes are and to be quite frank, Ben plugs a lot of those holes. The three players that we’ve traded for fit a lot of our needs. You specifically asked about Ben, the size, the elite defense, the elite passing skills, the finishing at the rim, all the things that we need, the transition play, all the things that we’ve sort of been short on to be quite frank over the course of this last year, I think we’re looking forward to Ben coming in and trying to fill those roles...
"With that discussion about [Simmons] being a primary ball handler, that discussion, to be quite frank, I haven't had with Ben. I'm obviously not worried about it. I think he does a lot of things on the court, whether that's handling the ball or not that help us, that help fill some needs. The luxury is we have several players that can fill the role as primary ball handler, so you look at that and Steve and I can handle these discussions. We're certainly excited about the pace with which Ben can bring to the team, the defensive ability, the ability to guard arguably one-through-five positions, the elite passing ability he has, the finishing at the rim, getting into the paint and finishing, those are some things that we are excited to see, let alone get the defensive rebound and push the break and lead the break. He can also be out on the wing running the lanes. It gives Steve some other weapons to use out there and it's going to be exciting for not only Steve and Ben but the entire group."
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