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The Brooklyn Nets have dominated much of the NBA offseason news cycle between the Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant drama.
Durant met with team owner Joe Tsai about his trade request that he placed on June 30, and he reiterated his desire to be shipped away. According to The Athletic’s Shams Charania, Durant has lost faith with the direction the team is heading in, and the way for him to stick around would be firing both head coach Steve Nash and general manager Sean Marks.
“In a face-to-face meeting with Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai over the weekend, All-NBA star Kevin Durant reiterated his trade request and informed Tsai that he needs to choose between Durant or the pairing of general manager Sean Marks and coach Steve Nash, sources with direct knowledge of the meeting tell ‘The Athletic,’” Charania wrote. “Durant stated he does not have faith in the team’s direction, sources said.”
It was later reported by the New York Post that Kyrie Irving feels the same way Durant does about the pair, but he hasn’t publicly called for their firing.
While Irving and Durant have captured the majority of the headlines, the Nets have a third star on the roster that garnered a lot of attention before his trade to the Nets. Ben Simmons has spent more than a year away from NBA basketball, so he’ll have a lot of eyes on him when he makes his eventual debut.
He was expected to debut during the playoffs against the Boston Celtics, but that never came into fruition. FS1 NBA analyst Ric Bucher reported Simmons actually left a group chat with teammates when asked if he was going to play in Game 4 of the series.
“They’re having a team chat before Game 4, thinking he’s going to play against the Boston Celtics,” he said on FS1’s ‘The Herd.’ “From what I’m told, they asked him if he was gonna play, Ben left the chat. They asked him ‘Are you going to play?’ Ben left the chat. Like he didn’t even answer the question, just left the chat. And [Kevin Durant’s] like ‘This is what I signed up for? This is who I’m playing with?’”
While he didn’t outright deny the claims, Simmons did speak up.
Simmons Responds
After all of the turmoil of the past few days with the news that Durant still wants out, Irving is unhappy, and Simmons leaving the chat, the Nets star spoke out.
“Slow news day,” he said in a tweet on August 9, possibly as a reference to everything going on around him.
This is Simmons’ first tweet since June, so he’s just been sitting back and watching all of the drama surrounding the Nets offseason unfold around him without saying anything publicly.
For what’s worth, the Nets do have high hopes for him.
Nets Still Believe in Simmons
The Nets are high on Simmons, according to Charania, and they view him as a good fit next to Irving and Durant.
“The Nets are incredibly high on Simmons’ return to play following his recovery from back surgery in May, viewing him as a perfect complement around Durant and Irving,” Charania reported.
Of course, there’s no telling if those two will even be on the team to start the next season, so their desire might not become a reality.
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