Are NBA Big Threes Done Forever?

Written by Lachlan Sherriff.

Think back to the 2019 NBA off-season. Kevin Durant left Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson to play with the Brooklyn Nets, breaking up one of the greatest big threes of all time, while Kyrie Irving left Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown to join the Nets, breaking up what could’ve been one of the greatest big threes of all time. This set up a Kyrie and KD duo, giving the Nets two all-stars. This trend then broke out around the league. LeBron managed to pull a trade with the Pelicans to play with Anthony Davis. Kawhi left the recent champions in Toronto to go to the Clippers, who were organising a trade for Paul George. Jimmy Butler broke up another promising big three with Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid to play with Bam Adebayo in Miami, while Russell Westbrook left OKC after eleven years to join his former teammate, James Harden in Houston. The duo hype stayed around the following season, with Chris Paul joining Devin Booker in Phoenix and Russell Westbrook joining Bradley Beal in Washington. Considering that the Lakers had just won a championship with only two all stars, it looked like the big three was gone.

And then it came back.

After Russ left him in Houston, Harden was ready to leave the Rockets. The Nets managed to take him in without giving up KD or Kyrie, and the best big three ever on paper was born.

The Nets managed to live up to the hype, and probably would’ve won the championship if Kevin Durant wore size ten shoes.

But all good. Just run it back.

LeBron wasn’t happy with the Nets having three all-stars, and sacrificed Kyle Kuzma, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Montrezl Harrell for Russell Westbrook, putting Russ on his fourth team in four years. Westbrook had also just broken the all-time triple double record, and averaged 23.6 points, 13.1 assists and 12.8 rebounds in the second half of his stint in Washington. It seemed like a good move. And so the Lakers and the Nets met in the 2022 NBA Finals.

Well, they didn’t. But if you listened to the media, you would’ve thought they already had before the season started. As if the other 28 teams, including the reigning NBA champions, just didn’t have a shot.

But the season hasn’t gone right, for either of the teams. Right off the bat, it was clear that Westbrook wasn’t the right fit for the Lakers. The former MVP has lost all the momentum he had in Washington, averaging only 18.3 points, 7.8 rebounds, and 7.6 assists, while shooting only 29% from three, 43% from the field, and averaging a career low in minutes since his MVP year, as the Lakers sit at a 26-30 record. The Nets were meshing for a while, but recently lost eleven games straight, and have just broken up their big three, trading James Harden away to the Sixers before he even played a full season. So what’s actually going on with big threes? Are they really done forever?

I want to point out here that the Lakers and Nets have both had struggles this year. Harden and Westbrook are having career-lows in stats, while Durant and AD have been injured and Kyrie’s antics sat him out for the start of the season and now is only a bit-part player. But even with the distractions, the two teams have just been poor. So what’s up with that?

Think of some of the best big threes of all time. The three that stand out to me are LeBron, Wade and Bosh, Jordan, Pippen and Rodman, and Steph, KD and Klay. These guys had chemistry, they were talented, and most importantly, they won. What separates these guys from other top big threes is that someone was always willing to take the backseat. Rodman and Bosh were always happy to focus on rebounding and defense to let the other two superstars score, while Klay never needed to be the primary ball handler. This is something that the Nets struggled with. Harden, Durant and Kyrie have all been primary ball handlers in their career, which led to many people pointing out that there was only one ball. To James Harden’s credit, he did try to adapt his game, averaging 11.7 assists when playing alongside KD and Kyrie. But Harden isn’t a playmaker. He’s a scorer, and that’s why so many people were underwhelmed watching Harden’s Brooklyn career. The Lakers didn’t suffer this problem to the extent of Brooklyn as AD is a center, but LeBron and Russ still had to take playmaking minutes off each other. In a league where centers can handle the ball, finding off ball players who are still all stars can be difficult. Nowadays seven foot guys dribble the ball around the three point line and even up the court, something Kevin Durant does commonly, despite having two of the best ball handlers the world has ever seen in his back court. But not only are superstars less willing to take less touches in this era, the availability of NBA all stars is lowering drastically.

I picked a random season of the NBA, 2000-01. Out of the 28 all stars in the 2001 season, only six of them played under seventy games, with Stephon Marbury and Kobe Bryant just falling short of the seventy game limit. But in 2018-19, the most recent season to complete eighty-two games, there were eight players who played under seventy games, despite there being one less all star. Players now do much more training than twenty years ago, and are expected to work harder. We live in a world where NBA all stars are injury prone, load manage, take time out because of personal reasons or even miss half of their matches because of a vaccine. It’s a crazy time. Because of players frequently missing games, the Nets big three only played sixteen times together. And when you’re giving three athletes a combined salary of 117 million dollars over a year, just for them to suit up together twenty times, it’s not worth it. You’re better off bringing in one or two all stars and surrounding them with talented role players. Which brings me to my next point. Role players.

The term “role players” has changed significantly in the past decade. Compare this statline from a player in 2009-10 and this statline from a current player. Take some time to think about them.

You ready?

The two players in question are Paul Pierce and Norman Powell. In the 2010 season Pierce made the all star team and took the Celtics to the finals, losing in seven to Kobe Bryant and the Lakers. Norman Powell meanwhile, is the definition of a role player, at least by today’s standards. You can find guys who are almost averaging twenty points a game, and pay them only fifteen million a year. Guys like Powell, Gary Trent Jr, Jonas Valanciunas, Bojan Bogdanovic, Desmond Bane, OG Anunoby and Harrison Barnes are all considered role players, yet have been averaging over seventeen points this year. Even Lugentz Dort, who is considered a defensive player, is averaging 17.2 points. These guys are all so successful right now, purely because they’re playing their role perfectly. And this doesn’t even consider guys that are above role players but below all star level. Players including Tobias Harris, DeAndre Ayton, Jrue Holiday, Jusuf Nurkic, they all fall into this category. Big threes can be fun to watch. But they don’t work out more often than they do. Look at the Bucks last year. They only needed one superstar. They then got two borderline all stars, and solid role players, and that was all they needed to win a ring. You could even say the Lakers team the year before followed a similar route. Sure they had two superstars, but no one else close to that level, and instead got guys like Caruso, JR Smith, Dwight Howard and JaVale McGee to all step up and play a role. This is what happens when you don’t give three guys overloaded contracts, and then settle for average and below average role players. This is what happened to teams that had three or more superstars but still failed, including the 1997 Rockets, the 2014 Nets, the 2016 Knicks and the 2012 Lakers. If you look at those teams, you’ll see how unbalanced the rosters were. Sure the starting line-up looks great. But if those superstars go down, play poorly or have poor chemistry with each other, there’s no one else who can get things back on track. And since this has happened with not one, but two of what could’ve been the best two trios of all time, I truly believe that the days of the big three are numbered.