Getty Kevin Durant of the Brooklyn Nets.
Kevin Durant obviously didn’t get what he wanted with his original trade request at the end of June, nor did his demand to have the Nets fire GM Sean Marks and coach Steve Nash go anywhere.
The failure of KD to achieve either of those goals is being blamed around the NBA on … KD.
“The guy who miscalculated was Kevin Durant, because he took that four-year deal,” said a league exec. “He didn’t take a page out of LeBron’s book and take a shorter-term deal. LeBron’s bet on himself, and that’s kept him in a leverage position with his team. With all his teams really.
“You can put on pressure when you have an opt-out coming up soon, but it’s a lot harder to scare your team when that team is sitting there holding your signed four-year contract.”
Coach: Durant Damaged his Own Cause
One former coach told Heavy Sports that Durant essentially sabotaged himself.
“The moment a player comes out and mouths those famous words: ‘Hey, man, get me the [expletive] up out of here,’ he just discounted himself,” he said. “He just hurt not only his prospect for a trade happening quickly, but he has just put his franchise in a position of losing leverage, because people think, ‘Well, I get a fire sale price, because that guy has already indicated he wants out of there.’
“And then Kevin doubled down on the same stupidity by giving an ultimatum designed to force their hand. He don’t really feel all that badly about Sean Marks and Steve Nash. He probably really likes them. They pretty much let him have free rein of the franchise. He doesn’t really have a problem with them. But he knew that he was looking for another leverage point to give them greater urgency to trade him even at a discounted price. So he came out with this ultimatum, and Joe Tsai looked at him and said, ‘Nah, bruh. Sorry. Not going to happen.'”
Our front office and coaching staff have my support. We will make decisions in the best interest of the Brooklyn Nets.
Durant Is Not Getting Any Younger
But even under the best of circumstances, without free agency and the prospect of a sign-and-trade, the prospect of finding a fair deal for a player of Durant’s caliber was dim.
“It IS difficult to trade superstars,” said a ranking front office member. “And we’re not just talking about an All-Star. We’re not just talking about a Hall of Famer. We’re talking about somebody who’s in the top 75 in the history of the NBA — and, to some people, a top 10 guy in the history of the NBA. That’s a difficult thing to extract proper value from.”
And as has been pointed out here in previous stories, the problem was even greater because Durant will be 34 at the start of the new season. So even though he has an attractive four years left on his contract, any team dealing for him would necessarily be in a go-for-it-now mode. You don’t trade for a player that old to start or enhance a rebuilding project. And to give the Nets what they would need to part with Durant — even leaving aside their unrealistic requests — would leave that team devoid of enough talent around KD to make a legit title run.