The Brooklyn Nets are embroiled in drama the likes of which we haven’t seen a team have to go through, perhaps ever. They have been dealing with the whole Kyrie Irving situation the last couple of years and Kevin Durant requesting a trade has just upped the drama ten-fold.
Durant’s trade request sent shockwaves around the league and all the initial indicators suggested that what led to him wanting out, was that he was upset with how the team had dealt with the entire Irving situation. They refused to give Kyrie a long-term deal, which was said to have been the final straw for Kevin. Now, however, there seems to be growing sentiment among NBA circles that Durant’s trade request was made with a different motive in mind. As per Dave McMenamin, a lot of people he has spoken to, believe that Durant requested a trade to get Kyrie out of Brooklyn.
“There is a school of thought speaking to people around the league that they think that the Durant trade request wasn’t actually about him getting out of Brooklyn, it was about getting Kyrie out of Brooklyn. But the reason why this thing is all kinda stuck in the mud right now is that the Nets will not make a major move like that with Kyrie until they are 100% crystal clear that the true intention of Kevin Durant would be to move off of Kyrie in order to stay. And as of my last couple of nights in Vegas, I left there about a week ago, that still remained up in the air. It was all in a period of stasis because Brooklyn was not ready to make a major move until they are completely sure that they have the understanding of what it would take to keep Kevin Durant in a Nets uniform.”
The whole situation is just crazy by the looks of it. If Durant is sick of playing with Irving and just wants him out, then he should just tell the Nets that. His refusal to clearly state it has kept things from progressing in terms of the team trading away Kyrie. Maybe the thought process is that he doesn’t want to offend his good friend by having it get out that he wanted Irving traded, but keeping quiet isn’t going to help either.
They say you should choose your friends wisely and considering all the wild stuff that’s come out of Irving’s mouth, including the time when he told Durant that he was KD in his past life, you wonder why Kevin continues to stick by him. We can appreciate the loyalty he is showing to someone he considers a friend but there has to be a limit to it.