Getty The KD-Kyrie era with the Brooklyn Nets has officially ended.
On June 30, 12-time All-Star Kevin Durant issued his trade demand to the Brooklyn Nets, which was the defining moment of the NBA offseason. Brooklyn agreed to honor his request but refused to make a move unless they got a substantial return for their franchise star.
Roadblocks arose when Nets general manager Sean Marks and owner Joe Tsai could not find a deal that met their requirements. That was because interested teams had put strict ramifications on what players they would surrender in a potential trade. On August 23, the two sides were able to find a common ground, and Durant agreed to return this season.
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Nets Could Blow up Team at Trade Deadline
But despite Durant’s heroic return to Brooklyn, this season has been a disaster for the Nets. They are currently out of the playoff picture with a record of 5-7. They fired head coach Steve Nash and hired his interim replacement, Jacque Vaughan as full-time head coach despite rumors they wanted to hire Ime Udoka. And Kyrie Irving is currently serving a five-game suspension.
The Nets still have time to turn things around, but the clock is ticking. NBA insider Brian Windhorst says Brooklyn could exhaust the ‘nuclear option’ and blow the team up at the trade deadline.
“This is just something that league executives are talking about and, frankly, the Brooklyn Nets’ front office has to seriously start considering. And that would be a potential nuclear option of beginning a blow-up to this roster this season,” Windhorst said during an appearance on ESPN on November 10 via Yahoo Sports.
“They owe the next four drafts, essentially, to the Houston Rockets. A pic swap this year, (Brooklyn’s) pick unprotected next year, another pick swap in two years, and in three years, their pick. But of those four, this year is interesting.
If this Nets team is not going to rebound, if Kyrie Irving isn’t able to satisfy the Nets and bring him back, if Ben Simmons’ knee and returning from his back issue is too big of a hurdle for him to be an impact player, maybe they need to look at what would happen if they took advantage of the pick swap this year.”
Nets Could Benefit From Pick Swap With Rockets
There is a silver lining to this disaster year for the Brooklyn Nets. As bad as they have been to start the year, the Houston Rockets, who they will swap picks with in this year’s draft, have been even worse. The 2023 draft is supposed to be one of the deepest in recent memory, highlighted by prospects Victor Wembayama and Scoot Henderson, who are widely regarded as franchise-altering talents.
Windhorst notes that even with the Nets having to swap picks with Houston because of the 2021 trade that brought James Harden to Brooklyn, their pick could still be a lottery selection.
“The Houston Rockets are one of the league’s worst teams. And with Victor Wembanyama and Scoot Henderson in this year’s draft, they’re going to stay one of the worst teams. If the Nets elected to go down the path of an instantaneous rebuild, they could get their pick into a position where even if it swaps with the Houston Rockets this year, it’d still potentially be a lottery pick in a very deep draft,” Windhorst added.
“It would also potentially bring Kevin Durant back on the market to be traded. And so, if the Brooklyn Nets did this, they would potentially have the assets they got from a Kevin Durant trade, potentially a very good lottery pick, and potentially other pieces and parts from other players they could trade this year.”
Things may seem like a disaster in Brooklyn now, but when you look at the reality of the situation, it is not as bad as it seems. The Nets are only 12 games into the season and are just 5.5 games back of the conference’s top seed. If they can put together a string of wins, the Nets could be back in the running.