Kevin Durant says a ‘lot of s***’ was inaccurate about offseason trade saga, but there’s not enough time for details
Listen, sometimes families fight. Break up. Get back together. Never talk it out. Put on a public guise of solidarity. Move on. Well the Brooklyn Nets are making it clear they’re a family and Kevin Durant, the provocateur of their recent drama, does not have time to talk all that context out.
Despite an early offseason trade request, Durant remains with the Nets after an August announcement that all sides had “agreed to move forward with our partnership.” It has obviously been the talk of training camp this week, particularly since Durant had reportedly wanted general manager Sean Marks and head coach Steve Nash fired.
Durant wants to ‘move past’ trade request saga
Durant was asked at Friday’s practice about any inaccuracies in the offseason reporting of his trade request and the stipulations he reportedly requested.
“Can we move on past that at some point?” Durant said, via Nick Friedell at ESPN. “I know it’s an interesting story. I know that it took up most of the offseason and drama sells, I get that, but I didn’t miss any games, I didn’t miss any practices, I’m still here.
“There’s a lot of s*** that was inaccurate, but it’s like, I don’t want to go through it right now. We don’t got that much time right now.”
The situation has been compared to a family structure by teammate Markieff Morris, Nash and Durant again on Friday. He said he was upset “and as a family, [the Nets front office] understood that I was upset.”
“And some of the stuff they agree with,” Durant said, via Brian Lewis at the New York Post. “And so we talked about [it] and it was over a couple of months, couple of weeks … we worked it out from there, and I’m here now.”
Durant reportedly met again approximately six weeks after his initial trade request with Nets owner Joe Tsai to deliver an ultimatum of granting the trade or firing Marks and Nash. Tsai came out in support of his coaching staff and front office on Twitter. Prior to the trade request, Durant had already signed a four-year, $192 million contract extension that began in July 2022 and essentially nixed his leverage. He turned 34 on Thursday.
“I felt like we had a good team,” Durant said on Friday of coming back to the Nets. “I felt like this is the place I said I wanted to be. We started to set something up in the future to be a solid team. So to be honest I thought this was still a great option, too.”
The Nets are a team full of serious questions after going off the rails in what was looking to be a promising 2021-22 season that held legitimate championship hopes.
