It’s a question that, for years now, has swirled throughout the NBA’s upper atmosphere; one that has ultimately shifted the balance of the title hunt for four of the last six seasons.
What does Kevin Durant want?
But it’s also a question that’s seemingly gotten harder to answer over that stretch of time; particularly now, at almost 34 years of age, after a joint announcement Tuesday from the Nets and Durant’s media company said the superstar would be staying put in Brooklyn this season—a total reversal from just two months ago, when he requested a trade from the ballclub.
That request, you’ll recall, came days after Durant’s teammate and close friend, star guard Kyrie Irving, chose to opt in for the final year of his deal with Brooklyn; a choice Irving made after the Nets understandably decided against offering him a long-term contract extension.
It'd be hard to blame them given all the collateral damage that stemmed from Irving’s decision not to get vaccinated. After that:
- The Nets announced they wouldn’t allow Irving to be a part-time player
- Brooklyn was considerably thin in terms of star power after Durant sprained his MCL in January, forcing him to miss nearly two months
- The KD injury and COVID-19 absences led the Nets to reverse themselves on Irving, allowing him to be a part-timer who could play on the road, but not in home games
- James Harden, who one season earlier pushed to be traded to the Nets as a third star, grew frustrated having to often serve as a lone one without KD and Irving
- Harden eventually requested—and received—a trade to the Sixers before the deadline
- Forward Ben Simmons, who’d fail to play a single minute all year, replaced Harden
- After needing a play-in game to reach the playoffs in the first place, the chemistry-starved Nets ended up getting swept in the first round by the Celtics
Yet after watching all that happen, and the Nets deciding not to open their wallet even further into the future to such mess, Durant appeared to throw his collective weight behind Irving—someone who all but illustrated last season that winning wasn’t his top priority—by requesting the trade. Durant then doubled down earlier this month, reportedly issuing an ultimatum to Nets owner Joe Tsai to either move forward with him—and ditch coach Steve Nash and general manager Sean Marks—or that he’d continue to push for a trade out of town. Just hours after that news broke, Tsai tweeted: “Our front office and coaching staff have my support. We will make decisions in the best interest of the Brooklyn Nets.”
Jasen Vinlove/USA TODAY Sports
So again: What is it, exactly, that Durant wants? Is it to have things completely on his terms? Is it to play with one of his closest friends, and have Irving’s back, regardless of how costly his choices were? Is it to win at the highest level? (Looking at sheer talent alone, Brooklyn’s roster still has enough to accomplish this, by the way. But who knows how this team will jell, or what drama will ultimately come.) Or is it some combination of the three?
The reality is, Durant’s had an opportunity to pull all three of those levers at different points.
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He was more or less a deity in Oklahoma City during his time there, and even had a restaurant in town named after him as a result of all the acclaim he brought the area. Durant left that all behind in jaw-dropping fashion when he opted to join the Warriors—the club that had just gone 73–9 and come back from a 3–1 conference finals hole to beat KD and the Thunder—in free agency back in 2016. Doing that offered him the chance to win an entire handful of championship rings, if not more. (Obviously Golden State picked up one more this summer, an indication that there was likely plenty of championship magic left in a KD-Steph Curry-Draymond Green-Klay Thompson foursome.) But at some point, after two championships, two Finals MVPs and a brutal Achilles tear during the 2019 title round, Durant decided he wanted something different—perhaps something more?—than winning alone.
“I mean, I’m crazy about winning, don’t get me wrong. I’m just not obsessed with winning championships,” Durant told ESPN’s Zach Lowe back in 2018, a full year before he left the Warriors to join the Nets. “ It’s not the only reason I play. I play for my individual growth.”
In a way, joining the Nets could have been seen as the best of both worlds. In building a contender with Brooklyn, Durant wouldn’t be seen as a mere bandwagon-jumper the way he was by many with Golden State. Even alongside Irving, no one would struggle to ascertain who was most responsible for Brooklyn’s success. At the same time, Durant would get to play alongside a close friend who just so happens to be one of the NBA’s most talented, skilled players—all while playing in the nation’s biggest market, but without the media glare that would have come with joining the Knicks.
And just in case he and Irving wanted to be able to put their stamp on the Brooklyn organization, well, that seemed fine by the Nets, too. At least it certainly looked that way when they parted ways with talented coach Kenny Atkinson after the 2020 season despite the clear development that had taken place within the program. It also spoke volumes back in ’20 when Irving and Durant made mention of the “collaborative effort” between he, Durant and Nash when it came to the process of actually coaching the Nets. “I don’t really see us having a head coach,” Irving said on a podcast. “KD could be a head coach. I could be a head coach.” Durant added on during the pod, too, saying assistant Jacque Vaughn could capably handle the task, if need be.
What was lost in the tone-deaf back-and-forth is 1) That sort of talk takes on a different sort of tone in the aftermath of Atkinson being let go; particularly if it happened because Irving and Durant wanted it to, and 2) It looks especially bad now, in light of Durant reportedly giving Tsai an ultimatum involving Nash.
Even if Durant, arguably the best player in the world, is good enough to demand that things be on his terms, it’s more than fair to wonder whether that should extend to Irving also receiving that same carte blanche after largely causing last season’s debacle in Brooklyn. Hell, right after the season, Marks spoke of the Nets culture having eroded as of late—a bright, blinking sign that suggested Tsai and the club might be running out of patience with Irving after how this past year played out.
That a top NBA talent like Durant—with four years left on his contract, no less—ended up back with Brooklyn after such a high-profile trade request suggests two things. One, the cost of premium talent in the NBA is out of whack in an almost-historic way. (Minnesota’s trade for Rudy Gobert trade suggested as much.) Secondly, it signals that NBA clubs, too, can’t get a clear reading on what matters most to Durant.
No one would mistake where the lion’s share of the blame for last season belongs. But by having Irving’s back, especially when his choices were most responsible for putting the club on life support, it raises questions about Durant’s leadership and explains why Brooklyn asserted more control here. Can he support a coach and general manager if he feels more compelled to back a teammate that isn’t fully committed? And for all his otherworldly skill and ability, with Durant getting older and consistently dealing with injuries, how big of a dice roll is he worth with more and more clubs shedding draft-pick protections left and right?
Judging by the fact that Brooklyn won this staredown, and that Durant will head into the year a Net despite all that’s happened, it would appear no other team was willing to go all in for him; at least not in this moment. And in a way, who could really blame opposing clubs when none of us are totally sure what’s motivating Durant most at this point?
