Joe Tsai, the landlord of the Nets, issued a commentary of make stronger for the workforce’s entrance workplace and training group of workers on Twitter Monday night time and added, “We will make decisions in the best interest of the Brooklyn Nets.”
The tweet looked to be in accordance with a record from The Athletic that mentioned the workforce’s superstar ahead, Kevin Durant, used to be nonetheless insistent that the Nets meet a industry call for he made in June. Durant, one of the crucial N.B.A.’s perfect gamers, met with Tsai in individual over the weekend, The Athletic reported, and conditioned his staying with the workforce at the elimination of Coach Steve Nash and General Manager Sean Marks. (Durant in the past had publicly lauded Nash, who simply finished his 2d yr because the Nets’ trainer, pronouncing within the spring that the trainer had treated the Nets “perfectly.”)
The Nets didn’t reply to a request for remark, and a spokesman for Durant’s corporate, Boardroom, declined to remark.
Tsai’s Twitter put up used to be an atypical escalation of a simmering feud between Durant, 33, and the Nets. Tsai has hardly weighed in on basketball issues publicly, and only one yr in the past Durant looked to be fortuitously married to the Nets, having agreed to a four-year contract extension with the workforce he had signed with in the summertime of 2019.
But a lot of Durant’s 3 seasons with the Nets haven’t long past consistent with plan and feature been marked by way of tumult.
Durant, whilst recuperating from an Achilles’ tendon harm, signed with the franchise along side his buddies, the superstar level guard Kyrie Irving and the veteran heart DeAndre Jordan. During the 2020-21 season, the Nets traded many in their younger gamers, along side a number of draft choices, to Houston for James Harden, apparently assembling one of the fearsome superstar teams in N.B.A. historical past.
But accidents stored the 3 stars from seeing the court docket very steadily. They performed best 16 video games in combination and had a dominant record of 13-3. In the 2021 playoffs, the Nets misplaced in the second one spherical to the Milwaukee Bucks, the eventual champions.
Last season, the Nets had been as soon as once more positive that they might are living as much as their lofty expectancies. But Irving’s refusal to get vaccinated towards Covid-19 supposed that he couldn’t play in house video games till later within the season on account of a New York City rule that used to be ultimately lifted. A annoyed Harden requested the Nets for a industry, and the Nets despatched him to the department rival Philadelphia 76ers for Ben Simmons. And as soon as once more, Durant, in addition to different gamers at the workforce, handled accidents, forcing Nash to push beginners into sudden roles.
The Nets hit all-time low within the playoffs, the place they had been swept within the first spherical by way of the Boston Celtics, an embarrassing consequence for a workforce that seemed to be — on paper — one of the gifted groups of the last decade.
Durant’s industry request used to be a bombshell that surprised many league observers. For something, the Nets had been projected to go into coaching camp with a powerful roster that come with Simmons, a three-time All-Star, and Irving, who opted into the overall yr of his contract. But a participant of Durant’s caliber has nearly by no means made a industry request like this with 4 years left on his contract.
Durant’s industry price, regardless of his résumé, is unsure, partially on account of how uncommon his request is and in addition on account of Durant himself. In 3 years with the Nets, he performed 90 common season video games of a imaginable 236 on account of accidents. He shall be coming into his sixteenth season, a level wherein maximum gamers are already in steep decline. But when Durant has performed, he has most commonly gave the look of he all the time has: a generational ability.
Durant’s ability makes him a tantalizing chance for a workforce having a look to place itself excessive, now not the least of which is that after a workforce trades for him, he may now not wish to keep.
