Brooklyn Nets superstar Kevin Durant shared his thoughts on JJ Redick’s YouTube channel on the infamous 2012 James Harden trade that saw the Oklahoma City Thunder ship off the sixth-man-of-the-year to the Houston Rockets in one of the most historically impactful trades in the league’s existence.
Durant essentially said that Thunder GM Sam Presti did not include him in the decision-making process during the Harden trade and in general during his tenure with the team. Durant also said that his relationship with Presti was solely business and that if he could redo it, he would pressure ownership into paying the luxury tax to keep Harden:
“I wasn’t really hit to the business side of it like I wasn’t really locked in with the front office to like, ‘yo, let’s have a conversation about our team going forward.’ So the talks hit me out of nowhere so I didn’t really know how to deal with it at that point. So it was just like, I’m just focused on doing my job, whoever come here to play it’s cool. We had a good run and still got good players and you know if it works for both sides and let’s just do it, you know, I’m saying. But then you see — because James was came off the bench for us — and then you see how it plays as a starter it was just like hold up — was that a good move? You know, four or five years later, just like even in the first game, he had what? 37?
“I didn’t feel like I had that relationship with our GM that just walk in and have conversations like that for one you know, so I was just, I just had to be down with anything that they did. I mean, I didn’t get the calls on you know, this is who we’re looking at free agency was just like, whoever they sign is who we sign and we’re gonna play with. You know, I’m saying so? I’m 22 years, 23 years old. So it was like, that wasn’t even in my thought process to ask or demand anything from the front office.
“Right after that ’13-’14, I just wanted to know who was going to be on my team. I want to know the guys that we were playing with. I’ve seen the league start to change. So obviously we wanted more shooters around. I wanted more skill on the team, you know, but I didn’t have that relationship with Sam Presti and the front office. It was a good work. relationship, but we didn’t go deep into the business. So as time went on, I just wanted to get more informed on who was going to be on my team. And you know, I started just digging into the business a little bit more.”
