You wonder how the Crown Prince of Culture was spending his private moments Tuesday, sequestered in his office at the HSS Training Facility, hard by …
You wonder how the Crown Prince of Culture was spending his private moments Tuesday, sequestered in his office at the HSS Training Facility, hard by the Gowanus Canal. It was a busy morning for Sean Marks, having to essentially kick his star player off the team like a high school coach enforcing curfew, then answering for it, and explaining it. Marks and the Nets did what they had to do, essentially turning Kyrie Irving into a non-person for as long as he chooses to keep his arms free of the COVID-19 vaccination. In truth, that was the easiest part of his day. The hard stuff probably comes in quieter moments of solitude when he has to ask himself sometimes: was it all worth it? The Crown Prince of Culture, you will recall, migrated to Brooklyn from San Antonio, where more poems and paeans have been penned about the Spurs Way than even the hungriest basketball junkie could consume in a lifetime. He promised he wasn’t just going to see to it that the Nets would win more basketball games. “There’s a certain right way to having success,” he’d said not long after he came aboard in 2016. “I have a strong belief in that. Call it culture if you like, though I’m tired of that word. I just think you need to surround yourself with people who have the same vision you do and then give your belief system time to breathe.” And here’s the thing: Given time to breathe, Marks’ blueprint actually worked.
