Months of hypothesis, rumors, web diatribes, pictures from personal exercises, and Tweets — maybe foremost amongst all of the issues on this checklist — have led to this second. The second the place the lengthy overdue notification we’ve all been anticipating, with baited breath or not, lights up our telephones. Right here goes; we could learn it collectively, pals? Deep breath.
Wait… ohhhhh. Okay, proper, so this was all for nothing. Good things. I’m positive the fallout received’t be swift and brutal for a lot of of these tangentially concerned.
Fifty-four days after Kevin Durant awakened and selected violence, unexpectedly (to some) requesting a commerce from the Brooklyn Nets with a wishlist in a single hand and a pitchfork in his different, the saga has concluded with what can solely be described as a whimper. The Nets launched the next assertion this morning from basic supervisor Sean Marks:
Each The Athletic’s Shams Charania and ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski additionally reported the information, with Charania adding that the complete contingent that met to work out Durant’s future with the franchise included Durant himself, his enterprise supervisor Wealthy Kleiman, Marks, coach Steve Nash, and homeowners Joe Tsai and Clara Wu Tsai. Wojnarowski noted, “Ultimately, Kevin Durant and the Nets performed out in an analogous method to Kobe Bryant and the Lakers in 2007: A tumultuous summer season after a commerce request, talks with groups, no deal and in the end a choice to return to the franchise.”
Charania recently reported that, “Durant met with Tsai in London in early August to debate his future with the workforce. He mentioned he had no religion within the workforce’s path at the moment and wished the Nets to decide on between him and Marks and Nash, in keeping with sources.” Possibly that religion has been restored; possibly each side grew uninterested in preventing their means towards a deal that was by no means going to be made. That appears most definitely: that the groups on Durant’s wishlist — the Phoenix Suns and the Miami Heat had been his preferences again in June — couldn’t meet the Nets expectations, and different suitors weren’t keen to both.
A type of suitors, as per custom when a famous person surfaces the commerce market unexpectedly, was reportedly Brad Stevens. For weeks on finish, the Boston Celtics discovered themselves within the heart of rumors aplenty, all of which featured Jaylen Brown as a centerpiece to any commerce supply the Nets would even suppose to contemplate. In line with Charania, the Celtics supplied Brown, Derrick White, and a first-round decide in July, however the Nets wished extra.
Did the Nets need Marcus Sensible and/or Robert Williams III to be included? Most likely. And Stevens was never going to make that move. Durant is a famous person, the most effective gamers within the league — if not the greatest when wholesome — however he’s 34 and appears to need out of each franchise the second his airplane touches down. That’s not precisely the participant you promote the farm for, not when that farm simply made its method to the NBA Finals, going via Durant’s Nets within the course of.
However that was all for naught, it appears. Durant’s tumultuous summer season has come to a detailed, and he stays in Brooklyn, the place he’ll seemingly play out the remaining years of the large contract he agreed to back in 2021.
For us?
