Kevin Durant finally got a chance to get an update about his trade request directly from the people controlling his fate when he had a meeting with Brooklyn Nets governor Joe Tsai. The meeting ended up being fruitless, as KD demanded that Sean Marks and Steve Nash be fired, something Tsai will not be doing.
As a result of Tsai’s insistence on keeping his coach and GM, it seems the situation with KD is going to keep unraveling until he is finally moved to a new team. However, many people around the league are upset with Durant for his demands to fire an executive and a coach.
NBA Inside Frank Isola was talking about the situation and expressed what he felt Joe Tsai should have told Durant during their meeting.
"Don't ever come into my office again and make ultimatums about who I should keep and who I should fire"
According to @TheFrankIsola, this is how Kevin Durant's meeting with Joe Tsai should've went pic.twitter.com/fRKL0fPXRC
— SiriusXM NBA Radio (@SiriusXMNBA) August 9, 2022
“I am gonna say, ‘we will do everything in our power to trade you but only if the deal is right for us. We’re running a business here. We did what you wanted with James Harden, all our draft picks now belong to the Houston Rockets. We cannot just break the whole thing down and start over. We are not even going to benefit from being a bad team. That’s why we went out and got TJ Warren and Royce O’Neal, we are going to get Joe Harris back, we think Ben Simmons will be back and we have Seth Curry, who everyone in the league wants for crying out loud. Your boy Kyrie Irving is still on the team but if you wanna be traded, we will do everything we can. Be prepared to show up to training camp if a deal can’t be found. Is that understood?’ Kevin Durant nods and says, ‘alright, I appreciate everything you’re doing in getting a deal done.’ ‘Also, one last thing, don’t ever come into my office and make ultimatums about who I should keep or who I should fire.”
Durant is backed into his current contract that will see a 4-year extension KD signed last season kick in. Trading a player with 4 years on their contract means the Nets will be looking for incredible value as they could just make KD sit for as long as they want before they lose him for nothing.
KD asking for the firing of Nash and Marks was to force the hands of Brooklyn into trading him, as it will be incredibly difficult for both coach and GM to deal with KD when training camp starts knowing he lobbied for them to be fired. A tough situation all around, and it will be interesting to see how KD and the Nets come out of this.
