This is a tough one. Before you read what I came up with, take a moment to ask what you might have come up with here. How on earth could these Nets truly surprise us?

If they were all healthy and started gunning for 70 wins would that be a shock? (Honestly, I'm confident they could do that. Where I'd be surprised would be learning they even wanted to try- this group has enough regular-season accolades for a lifetime). What if the Nets dealt with a rash of injuries off and on and never really got a chance to jell — would that be a surprise? Nah, we saw that already last season. What if they were all healthy and on the floor and just randomly stunk? OK, that would be legitimately shocking, but I'm certainly not bold enough to forecast that. What if one of their best players refused to get vaccinated and missed every home game all year long and found himself mired in controversy for the next six months? OK, that might have surprised me last week, but this situation ramped up pretty quickly, didn't it?

OK, but we must push forward and forecast the unexpected for the Nets. So let's try anyway.

3 reasons the Nets will surprise everyone this season:

3) Kevin Durant lets his guard down and shows us a softer side

It's difficult to picture KD really letting his guard down with the Nets. Maybe we saw a bunch of it when he was in Oklahoma. But since he went to the Warriors, he subjected himself to a ton of criticism and you could almost feel it hardening his exterior persona. Well, is it me or does it sort of feel like Durant is just enjoying himself more lately?

If you didn't get to see the full back-and-forth between Dave Letterman and KD during Nets media day, you should. Only the full version does it justice. My favorite part is when KD says “they'll let anybody in here,” and Dave cries back “hey I heard that,” and KD can't keep his straight face anymore.

KD also lit up at media day when talking about how close LaMarcus Aldridge was to cracking 20,000 career points. He's 49 points away, and ranks 48th all time on the leader board. It was great to see how excited KD was for his Nets teammate's looming milestone.

Remember that now-infamous cold take by The Ringer's Bill Simmons where he predicted 67 wins, and “lots of high fiving” by the Celtics?

KD is going to have a lot of fun this season and show Nets fans a more human side than they may have gotten used to when he was in Golden State. I think he's reached a place in his career where he is at once comfortable with his personal accolades, comfortable in his own skin, and comfortable with his role as the leader of this team. He just has something about him where he doesn't rattle under pressure and his teammates seem to really admire that trait.

My humble opinion: KD seems happier now than he's seemed over the last few seasons. But Dave, his Achilles is fine and he just signed a max extension. Yeah yeah, maybe it's not the boldest prediction but I'm still predicting more “warm and fuzzy KD” this season with the Nets.

2) James Harden contends for NBA lead in dimes on a per-game basis

It should not be surprising if James Harden were to lead the league in assists for the Nets. Everyone should know he's capable of doing so. Yet there's this preposterous notion that Harden doesn't pass much.

Go back and watch Miami Heat LeBron James and ask yourself if that dude couldn't have won a few more Defensive Player of the Year awards had he prioritized that. It's similar here. Had Harden wanted to win the assist crown each year he could have done it for several seasons. “The Beard” just generates buckets, for himself and for his Nets teammates. One thing I don't think we talk about enough is bucket generation.

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Yes, we track the scoring leaders. Yes, we track the assist leaders. But we rarely combine them and just say “best offensive player.” Harden probably has numerous regular seasons where he deserved the title of Most Valuable Offensive Player.

I'm not sure how the Nets will want to apportion his minutes. Just how aggressive will they elect to be, with him coming off of a wicked grade two hamstring strain? Without that knowledge, I'm not going to predict he'll total the most assists in the league. But I think he'll be at the very top in assists per game.

And how about this for a bold prediction, I say he'll win NBA Finals MVP averaging double-digit dimes, cracking 15 total in one of the contests. He has been and still is one of the best passers in the league. These Nets don't need him to be the scorer Houston needed him to be. He can be the facilitator.

1) Kyrie Irving

That's it. Just Kyrie Irving. One way the Brooklyn Nets will surprise everybody this year will be Kyrie Irving. I get that it may be a cope out of some sort. On the one hand, he's the most unpredictable player in the NBA. On the other, that makes anything you imagine him saying or doing not actually surprising. But we need to remind ourselves that it's just the state his unique and whimsical nature leaves us in.

If you heard that Kyrie was going to get vaccinated so that he could hoop, but then he changed his mind about wanting to even play and decided he was going to join The Peace Corps “because there are things far greater than basketball for me to focus on,” and was on the next flight to Sri Lanka, you wouldn't blink twice. If you heard that his plan was to respect the vax mandates and not play in Brooklyn, but determined to make one of the three All-NBA teams while only playing road games and helping the Nets a title, you'd probably shrug and say “yeah that sounds like Ky, bet he does it too.” If you heard he got vaccinated months ago but truly didn't want to reveal that because of “his right to privacy” and that's why this all started you might not be shocked either. If you heard he was traded and then retired and moved in with comedian Jim Carrey to study how to be a painter, you'd probably say “mmm-Hmmm, sure.”

So Kyrie, per se, is a surprise. He's one of the most fascinating and incomprehensible athletes. As Stephen A. Smith recently said frankly, he's “a bit bizarre.” Just allow yourself to be surprised. Sometimes we're too quick to say “yeah I thought so.” This dude basically ensures that no, you didn't think so. The craziest part about his whole vaccine situation with the Nets is that he hasn't even publicly acknowledged it yet. Any day now, he might get into his reasons for (reportedly) not wanting the jab. That might surprise us also.