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Ex-teammate Taurean Prince will bring a lot to Nets

The goal for Trae Young’s rebuilding Hawks is to make the playoffs and take a quantum leap forward.

Basically, they want to emulate the Nets.

After making the playoffs this past season for the first time since 2015, the Nets landed Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and DeAndre Jordan to become arguably the single biggest winners in NBA free agency this summer. It was a breakthrough that didn’t go unnoticed by Young.

“That team did an unbelievable job last season of getting in the playoffs,” Young said Wednesday at the NBPA/Five-Star Camp at Basketball City in Lower Manhattan. “They have a tremendous coach. It’s not just their players. With Durant and Kyrie, that’s an unbelievable duo.”

With Jordan, its a trio of players who have been All-NBA a combined 14 times. The Nets also traded for Hawks forward Taurean Prince before the draft, and Young gushed over his former teammate and what he’ll bring to Brooklyn as a potential starter.

“He can bring a lot,” Young said of Prince, who averaged 13.5 points last season on 39 percent shooting from 3-point range. “Taurean is a tremendous player. He brings a lot of skill on the court with his ability to shoot and pass. He’s very smart. I think that goes very underrated. He knows how to make plays and went to make plays.”

When Nets general manager Sean Marks was trying to clear cap space to bring in Durant, Irving and Jordan, he shipped a pair of first-round picks to Atlanta to offload Allen Crabbe’s $19 million expiring contract. That trade also brought the Nets Prince, who presumably will vie with Rodions Kurucs to start at power forward until Durant’s ruptured Achilles tendon heals.

“As far as off the court, [Prince] was very helpful for me,” Young said. “I know Brooklyn doesn’t have a lot of young guys, but off the court, he’s a guy that’s not going to be in trouble and going to be low key. As far as a teammate, he’s a good person and a good player to be around. I think Taurean is going to have a great season in Brooklyn.”

The Nets are poised to have a good season — or even a great one if Durant can beat the odds and return in 2019-20.

The bar is different for Atlanta, which went 24-58 two years ago and 29-53 in Young’s rookie campaign. The Hawks are poised to make a huge jump themselves — they hope into the playoffs.

“We just want to speed up the process,” Young said. “Obviously we want to be in the playoffs.

“I think for us, watching the playoffs this year — especially for me — it hurt. That’s what I’ve been focusing on this summer, is how I can help my team, how I can build that camaraderie with this young team to help us get there, and speed up the process that everybody is talking about.”

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