The Brooklyn Nets say they’re ready to go to training camp with Kevin Durant. But they don’t want that. It’s gonna be a mess. It will be James Harden in Houston and then Brooklyn again. Ben Simmons in Philly. Paul George in Indiana. Anthony Davis in New Orleans. Kawhi Leonard in San Antonio. Kyrie Irving in Cleveland. If a gamer asks out in this day and age, they have an almost 100 percent success rate if they get their way, and usually pretty quickly.
Of course, the reason the Nets are saying they’re willing to drag this out for as long as necessary is because they’re trying to get at least some level of leverage while wooing the league for a historic return for Durant. who, given his still-stellar talent and contract status (whoever trades for Durant will theoretically lock him up for the next four seasons) is arguably the most compelling trade bait to ever enter NBA waters.
In fact, nobody gets Durant for anything less than a massive package. But there are massive grades, and it seems like the nets are asking about the world, as they should at this early point in the process. Consider this little insight from Yahoo’s Vincent Goodwill, recently featured on Chris Haynes’ Posted Up podcast, about a proposal Brooklyn made to the Minnesota Timberwolves:
“I heard Brooklyn came to Minnesota and said we want Karl-Anthony Towns, we want the Ant-Man (Anthony Edwards), and we want four draft picks.”
From Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic:
The Wolves have also made several calls to Brooklyn about Kevin Durant, sources said, but the Nets have been asking about established all-stars and a mountain of picks. Minnesota was unwilling to part ways with Edwards or Towns in a KD-centric deal, so there was no traction.
Wolves obviously made inquiries about Durant before deciding to send four prospective first-round picks (three unprotected) and another potential pick trade, along with Kessler, the No. 22 overall pick walker of 2022, as well as Malik Beasley , Patrick Beverley, Leandro Bolmaro and Jarred Vanderbilt , to the Utah Jazz for Rudy Gobert. Many have argued that this was a ridiculous package for Gobert. I’ll tell you this: the package the Nets wanted for Durant would have been a hundred times more ridiculous.
Yes, Durant is Durant. But the guy is entering his 16th season. You never know when the decline will begin, but rest assured it will. The wolves had absolutely no future beyond Durant. Edward’s away. cities, gone. All first-round draft picks are gone for the foreseeable future. And even for the years that Minnesota had Durant, what chance would Durant have had to compete in an absolutely loaded Western Conference with D’Angelo Russell as his top teammate? Zero.
So yes, the nets will be reaching for the stars with this Durant deal. And they will probably end up on the moon. But if this Minnesota rumor is any indication of their expectations at this point, they need to let that pipe dream go.