The faces of the franchise have changed. Naturally, the focus follows them.

Once Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and DeAndre Jordan decided to make Brooklyn home, the oft-ignored Nets became one of the league’s most intriguing teams, positioned to contend for their first NBA title, upon Durant’s return from a ruptured Achilles tendon.

But even if the former MVP returns at full strength, the Nets need much more.

“We need our young guys to step up,” coach Kenny Atkinson recently said. “We talk about Kevin and Kyrie a lot, but who is gonna make that jump?”

The top candidate is obvious.

Just under a year ago — when Durant was attempting to lead a three-peat in Golden State and Irving appeared capable of taking a young Celtics team to a title — Caris LeVert began a breakthrough third season, leading the Nets with 18.4 points per game, until suffering a horrific-looking foot injury on Nov. 12 in Minnesota.

LeVert returned three months later and initially struggled to recapture his early-season form, but the 6-foot-7 guard again became the team’s top threat in his first-ever playoff series, averaging 21 points in the first-round loss to the 76ers. In 40 regular-season games, he averaged 13.7 points, 3.9 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 1.1 steals.

“I think [his ceiling’s] really high. I just remember those first [14] games, we’ve all seen, this guy’s ready to make an All-Star jump before he got hurt,” Atkinson said Monday. “He was really dominating, and in the playoffs, he was starting to hit his stride. You could argue he was our best player in the playoffs. There’s some noise in there. There’s guys that want to be great and guys who are desperate to be great, and he’s in that desperate category. There’s only a few guys like that.”

And even fewer guys like Irving, whose brilliance allowed LeBron James to capture a long-elusive championship in Cleveland, and whose self-admitted failure led to Boston falling short of its potential.

During Irving’s six All-Star seasons, the former No. 1 overall pick has been most dangerous with the ball in his hands. But the career 39 percent 3-point shooter doesn’t believe he needs it as much as many believe.

“Kyrie always tells me, ‘I’m really good off the ball.’ He’s a real threat. He turns into a real Joe Harris-type when Caris is driving,” Atkinson said. “You have another shooter out there. I think it works well. I always say I love multiple ball-handlers, multiple downhill guys. That’s what sucks defenses in. It’s gonna be finding the balance with those guys.”

LeVert, 25, has shown why he was worth the risk of the Nets’ first-round pick in 2016, but also displayed why 19 players were taken before the injury-prone guard, who has played an average of 56 games in his first three years.

A little under two months after the Nets committed to contracts worth roughly $340 million to land Durant, Irving and Jordan, the team locked up LeVert to a three-year, $52.5 million extension, keeping him under team control through the 2023-24 season.

“It was big for myself and my family, but going forward, my mindset’s still the same, trying to push to be the best player I can be every day,” LeVert said. “Last season, I experienced a lot of emotions in basketball, from the highs to the lows, from game-winners to being scoreless. I feel like I really grew as a player in a lot of those moments, especially coming back from injury. Going forward now, I feel like I’m back to myself.”