Kevin Durant is an elite forward, and most people would agree that he is a top-5 player in the NBA. He is a fantastic offensive powerhouse and can definitely be the No. 1 option on a contending team.
Recently, we saw Kevin Durant request a trade. Despite his stature as a player, he has not been traded yet. In fact, it was recently reported that the Brooklyn Nets are not happy with any trade offers they have been getting for Kevin Durant.
“The executives are going on vacation… At this point, the Nets’ preferred situation is for Kevin Durant to stay with them. There is no trade that they’ve got that they like.”
NBA insider Marc Stein has recently revealed that part of the reason that no teams are giving up a “historic haul” for Kevin Durant is that they’re afraid they won’t be able to keep him happy.
Why are the Nets having so much trouble generating the so-called historic haul they were expecting when it emerged just hours before the start of NBA free agency on June 30 that Durant wanted out of Brooklyn?
Some of it can be attributed to the fact that Durant’s most desired destinations — Phoenix and Miami — are contending teams less than flush with the sort of trade assets that the Nets covet. The persistent scuttle around the league, though, is that clubs interested in Durant mostly fear their ability to keep him content more than they feel any concern about his advancing age.
“If the Nets can’t keep him happy, after everything they’ve given him, how are we supposed to?” one Western Conference team official told me.
There is no doubt that there’s the risk of Kevin Durant simply requesting another trade down the line if he were to go to a franchise where he does not truly want to be. That team would then be stuck in an unenviable position, having to deal with a disgruntled superstar.
If a team does believe they have the ability to keep Kevin Durant content, then they should absolutely try to get him. He is a franchise-changing superstar, and at the end of the day, all Kevin Durant likely wants to do is win. Generally, when players win, they are happy, and the same probably applies to Kevin Durant.
