The Brooklyn Nets landed superstar James Harden in a blockbuster trade a couple of weeks ago. After years of almost reaching the NBA finals, Harden gave up on the Houston Rockets this year, despite adding all-stars John Wall and Demarcus Cousins. While looking at the Nets roster on paper, they have arguably the most intimidating team in the NBA with three of the best scorers all on one team and have MVP caliber players, two of them winning the award, it is almost possible to not bet on the Brooklyn Nets on winning the NBA finals this year. However, there have been some problems within the organization and its players which also makes the Nets run at winning the finals impossible even with the addition of Harden. Two of the main reasons are lack of depth on the roster and the team chemistry.

To land James Harden, the Nets gave up a lot of depth on their roster, specifically their bench, with players such as Caris Levert and Jarrett Allen gone. This means that the trio of Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and Harden, need to make up for the lack of depth with good performances night in and night out. One of the problems with the roster is that Irving keeps going off the grid and misses games despite putting up good numbers and having a positive impact on the court. Short lapses of any of the three superstars missing games can open opportunities for other teams to beat them with or without all three players because of the lack of chemistry. If there is no team chemistry, the team will never be prepared to win championships. Despite Harden and Durant playing with each other earlier in their careers, it does not guarantee any team chemistry. All three players like to have the ball in their hands when it matters and there is only one ball. On top of that, Steve Nash is a rookie coach and while he knows a lot and is capable of coaching any basketball team, he is not even acclimated with Durant and Irving yet.

The Brooklyn Nets have all the tools to be a championship-caliber team, but if they don’t resolve their issues, they could end up like the Los Angeles Clippers, a talented team with no team chemistry and as a result, get embarrassed in the more competitive playoff games. Only time will tell if the Nets are ready to win a championship.