Brooklyn Nets General Manager Sean Marks announced today that Kevin Durant is staying in Brooklyn, ending his trade demand and agreeing to “move forward with our partnership.”
— Brooklyn Nets (@BrooklynNets) August 23, 2022
That means that after all that noise this summer, the Nets are exactly where they were before all of this, with Marks in charge of the team, Steve Nash as the coach, and Durant leading the team. The Nets also reportedly plan on keeping Kyrie Irving as well, so the trio that now includes Ben Simmons will start the season in Brooklyn.
So what does that all mean?
- Score one for the owners
This was maybe the biggest test of player agency the league has faced. Durant, an aging superstar who had just signed a four year contract extension, demanded a trade and then reportedly demanded the GM and coach get fired as a condition for rescinding that demand.
He got neither.
There's no doubt an exhale coming from front offices around the league who were watching to see how this went. If Durant had gotten his wishes, then the risk of other players ignoring multiple years left on their deals and making similar demands would have increased.
Ultimately, Joe Tsai’s stance in support of his front office and coaching staff signaled that Durant’s demands weren’t going to be accomodated. And after realizing that the rest of the league wasn’t going to give in to the Nets’ outrageous demands for a trade return, the team clearly decided that it wasn’t going to trash its future to bend to Durant’s will. Because they traded their picks away in the James Harden deal from Houston, they aren’t even in a position to scrap everything and tank for Victor Wembanyama.
And so Brooklyn stood firm and told its star that they would neither fire people for him nor trade him away for pennies on the dollar. Durant could have tried being disruptive, but that would have resulted in both lost money and lost time, which is becoming more precious for Durant at this point of his career.
What it came down to, I think, was that Durant had zero leverage in this standoff. If the Nets traded him away for the deals that were on the table, they’d be no better than a middling team, which is the worst place to be, especially with no draft picks. If they kept Durant and he sat out, they’d still be a middling team, but Durant would be fined and he’d be watching the end of his prime rot away while he pouted.
So with Brooklyn basically in the same place no matter what they did, they called Durant’s bluff and won. Congrats to them, and to Tsai, for standing their ground. As much as I believe in a player’s right to request a trade, this one was definitely over the top, and this outcome is the right one.
- This might not be over
This doesn’t necessarily mean everything will be great in Brooklyn. The request to fire Nash does put some pressure on the team right away.
There's a reason that request was made, and it would be no surprise to see those rumblings return. Personally, if I was Nash, I’d bow out. Nash has the backing of the front office and the owner, so he’s not being forced out, but it’s clear he has issues with his best player. He doesn’t need this job, so why go through all of this all over again?
Regardless, there is going to be added scrutiny on this team all season long, and if things aren’t going well, there will certainly be constant questions about whether these guys still want to play there. Considering Irving’s flightiness, he might be committed to the team in December and then take half of January off for personal reasons.
Bottom line: don’t be surprised if this resurfaces. It’s certainly possible this has been a Kobe Bryant-like demand and Durant stays with Brooklyn until he retires, but I’m not sold on that just yet.
- Brad Stevens can give Jaylen Brown an “I told you so”
When the first Celtics rumor dropped, there was a lot of wondering about Boston’s “offer” to the Brooklyn Nets. The national media, like the Athletic’s Shams Charania, classified Brown, Derrick White, and a first round pick as an offer for Durant while local media was told nothing rose to the level of an actual offer on the table.
With Durant now off the table, Stevens can look at Brown and tell him the Celtics were never really in the running for Durant. As I’ve said many times at this point, if the Celtics wanted Kevin Durant, he’d be on the team right now.
If they wanted to do a deal for Durant, they would have done it before the Evan Fournier TPE expired because that would have been an easy way to replenish some of the depth that they gave up in the deal. Making a deal for Durant now, in August, after losing that and having already made other deals that very clearly supported the current core, never made any sense.
Stevens can now say something to the effect of ‘I called about Durant, they asked for Jaylen, and we stopped talking about Durant’ and have that basically be the end of the story. He can say he doesn’t control the noise and that he doesn’t control what rumors the other side wants to drop in order to try to get their deal done, and that would essentially be all the fence-mending necessary … if it was even necessary at all.
- Another tough obstacle remains in Boston’s way
There was some hope that the Nets would disintegrate this summer and take a tough opponent out of the mix, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. The Celtics now have Milwaukee, Miami, Philadelphia, and Brooklyn to contend with, which means it’s very likely two of these five teams will face off in the first round of the playoffs and two of the others in the way of a Finals berth.
That, my friends, will be one hell of a gauntlet for the 4 or 5 seed. This makes getting a top seed a little more important for Boston. Getting one of the top two seeds already feels like a priority, considering that the bottom of the East might be a little on the weaker side. Avoiding as much of that top-end competition is going to be more important if Brooklyn is healthy and focused.
- Maybe we'll see some business get done now
The league seemed to be waiting for some resolution on this Durant mess before other moves were made. The Donovan Mitchell rumors should heat up now that potential Durant suitors can focus their attention elsewhere. Some teams might have been waiting to see if they could address their needs by hopping into a Durant deal as a third or fourth team, and now they have to adjust to fill out their rosters. Some teams might have just been waiting to see what the price was for Durant.
Now that Brooklyn's demand weren't met, it will be interesting to see if that will serve as a sort of market correction after the outrageously lopsided Rudy Gobert trade to Minnesota. There seemed to be a lot of 'if they could get that for Gobert, we should get MORE for Durant' rumblings about Brooklyn's stance. Now that they couldn't, maybe the Mitchell discussions can be grounded in some level of reality.
Either way, there was no doubt the Durant drama was holding up some business. We could see some moves made in rapid succession now.
I’d like to say this has been a fun month, but in the end it has been a frustrating one of people taking an obvious negotiating ploy too seriously. I’m glad we can finally move past all this.