Brooklyn Nets fans have had a hard few weeks. Looking forward to Ben Simmons return, and how that might change their playoff fortunes, the Nets were regarded as an NBA Finals contender not long ago. After being unceremoniously swept by the Boston Celtics in round one of the playoffs, the media and rival fanbases have been especially unkind towards Brooklyn.

Nobody has been spared. Kevin Durant has gotten dragged for being outplayed by Jayson Tatum and shooting terribly. Kyrie Irving's entire season is under the microscope because of how many games he missed due to vaccination status. And some analysts have even taken a macro view and taken Joe Tsai and Sean Marks to task for their team building, accusing them of allowing KD and Kyrie to get away with too much or taking a misguided ā€œsuper teamā€ approach.

While we sit and look forward to the next phase of the offseason and what it might bring, Kyrie Irving broke his silence on his state of mind during the time period when he was still completely ineligible to play. Remember, it wasn't until just before Christmas that the Nets made the fateful decision to allow him to play in home games. Before that, he wasn't playing at all.

With Eddie Gonzalez, Irving opened up on how he felt:

ā€œI never felt like I was back,ā€ Irving admitted on an interview appearance with Gonzalez for The ETCs with Kevin Durant of Boardroom, a Kevin Durant and Rich Kleiman created media and news company.

ā€œThere was nothing to lose, it was only the journey to enjoy at that point [when I came back and scored 60 points], because I was sitting at homeā€¦ wondering at home what my future was gonna look like. Whether I was gonna be traded, whether I was gonna be released, whether I was gonna get the opportunity to be on another team, how I was going to spin this for myself in a positive way.ā€

When we learned that Irving resolved not to get vaccinated, and that precluded him from playing in home games, the team decided they did not want to accommodate part time players. They also withdrew a max contract extension they had put on the table for the seven-time All-Star out of Duke. It was around this time, as Irving headed into a 2022 summer where he could opt out of his contract and become an unrestricted free agent, that many reasonably wondered if the team would trade the diminutive superstar. There truly was a feeling of uncertainty with his Nets future.

Irving continued:

ā€œI was at it maybe Sep. Oct. I was healing from my ankle injury, I was still dealing with that, and when we got into training camp, in San Diego, I was not expecting a mandate to be brought down in a way that wasn't gonna allow me to play at all. I had the opportunity to play away games still, but there was no plan in place, there was no vision of like how it's gonna work for our team. And I think that really impacted not just me but a lot of people. Just had to sit in that hot seat for a little bit and deal with it, man.ā€

In the end, the team made the difficult decision to let him play road games. No doubt they had the support of Kevin Durant at the time. We can comfortably infer they didn't have full support from James Harden on that call. Reports came out after The Beard was traded that he wasn't on board with the team's bout face on Irving's availability.

We made the case on Dec. 14 that the Nets should shop Irving for trade. If he wasn't going to play at all, it made little sense to pencil him in for a long-term contract. What if he left for another city, they couldn't risk losing him for nothing like Boston did not long ago.

We were surprised he was reinstated just a couple days later. The widespread omicron variant of COVID that went through the fully vaccinated Nets locker room in December caused a change of mind. If we're all getting COVID anyway, why not bring back Kai, there's no continuity as it is, was perhaps part of the team's reasoning.

Had Nets owner Joe Tsai not reassessed and resolved to never allow Irving's part-time return, who knows how things would have played out. Ultimately, New York City lifted the vaccine mandate by spring and Kyrie was allowed to play in Brooklyn just in time for the Play-In Tournament. But there were two more long months between the day they brought him back Dec. 17 and the Feb. 10 NBA Trade deadline. Might they have had any trades lined up? We may never know. But the fact that Irving was wondering the same thing doesn't do much to stop our imaginations from running wild. Irving sounds like he's planning on staying put long term now with number seven. But it might have been touch and go for awhile there last winter.