Kyrie Irving, Brooklyn Nets

Kyrie Irving, Brooklyn Nets

NBA

Kyrie Irving, Brooklyn Nets

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Kyrie Irving should feel at home with the Brooklyn Nets. He grew up in nearby West Orange, New Jersey. He's bringing along his close friend, Kevin Durant, and former Team USA Olympic teammate DeAndre Jordan. He's in a destination he hand-selected and with an organization he surely studied inside and out. "I think this is the first time Kyrie is choosing where he wants to be," YES Network's Sarah Kustok said on the Crossover podcast. "This is not through a trade and not through the draft. This is Kyrie saying 'I have a multitude of options, and this is the place where I feel comfortable,' and it seems like something that he is thought about for a long time." Comfort isn't discussed often enough with NBA fits. Irving lost that feeling in Cleveland as he couldn't shake the shadow of LeBron James. He never seemed to thrive in Boston, where he failed to connect with his younger teammates and wasn't the best fit for head coach Brad Stevens' system. Everything could change in Brooklyn. Irving will have near-total control of this offense for most or all of the 2018-19 season while Durant works his way back from a ruptured Achilles. He also walks into a system better suited to his skills—Brooklyn ran more isolations and more pick-and-rolls than Boston—and a supporting cast with more defined roles and complementary talents. He has enough help to avoid being on an island, but his place atop the hierarchy is unquestioned. In other words, he can increase his output to career levels without doing much (if any) harm to his efficiency.