Kevin Durant’s nearly 2-month-long trade saga ended with a whimper after the Brooklyn Nets announced that the player had reconciled with coach Steve Nash, GM Sean Marks, and owner Joe Tsai and will be returning to the team for the 2022-23 season. This means the Nets are going to hope to contend atop the East with their core intact, even though they were the best team for KD’s championship-winning purposes all along.
All teams that the Nets spoke to at this time couldn’t get a deal for KD done because of the high asking price. Naturally, this led to the market for KD drying out and teams having to include crucial role players in the trade to sacrifice depth and acquire KD. At that point, the Nets will be the best existing roster KD can work with. Maybe he realized that and rescinded his trade request.
Either way, Kendrick Perkins is not happy with how KD has dealt with this very stressful summer for everyone associated with the Brooklyn Nets.
"KD don't have the power, KD don't have the juice. He tried to request a trade, nothing happened. He tried to get Steve Nash and Sean Marks fired, nothing happened."@KendrickPerkins says Kevin Durant isn't as powerful as he thinks he ispic.twitter.com/sixrbWwCFk
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) August 24, 2022
“KD don’t have the power, KD don’t have the juice. He tried to request a trade, nothing happened. He tried to get Steve Nash and Sean Marks fired, nothing happened. All of a sudden, training camp is coming near and he figures that teams who were willing to part ways with a young superstar like the New Orleans Pelicans, is not willing to part with Brandon Ingram. KD had to figure things out and said ‘now I’m going to take this meeting’. Now I have to go with Rich Kleinman, walk up the office, look these guys in the eyes and say ‘let’s figure it out’.
KD failing to make a move after taking such a public stance against Brooklyn is quite shocking. The ‘player empowerment’ era has led to these situations usually ending with the player getting what they want, but the Nets have managed to talk KD off the ledge he was on.
KD does look weak, but his position will get stronger if the team doesn’t live up to the promises they have allegedly broken already. Hopefully, we see a successful year in Brooklyn and not have drama coming out of the franchise like in the past 2 seasons.
