If you’re a Nets fan and have grown tired of Kyrie Irving, Monday is a good day. Pending a physical, he no longer plays for Brooklyn and will be joining the Dallas Mavericks. This trade materialized just a couple of days after his request to be dealt was made public. But what could this mean for Kevin Durant and his future with the Nets?
Let’s not forget that outside of requesting his own trade over the summer (and eventually rescinding that request), Durant just signed a four-year deal with Brooklyn. The 34-year-old was playing at an MVP-caliber level before injuring his knee a few weeks ago. The Nets’ plan between now and Thursday’s trade deadline is to try and get KD help for a championship run, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski:
Woj: "The Dallas-Brooklyn talks accelerated quickly today… For Brooklyn, they were ready to be done with this Kyrie Irving situation."#NBA pic.twitter.com/IBWVbEGVS5
— ??????' ??? (@_Talkin_NBA) February 6, 2023
That’s all well and good, but after seeing what went down the past few days, who knows what Durant is thinking at this point? There are two obvious scenarios that could come to fruition. One is he also requests a trade prior to the deadline, especially if things aren’t looking how he wants. The other is to play out the remainder of this year and once again request a trade this summer.
If Durant were to become available — especially prior to Thursday’s deadline — the interest in acquiring him would likely be quite vast and competitive. There appear to be two teams waiting to pounce should he become available: the Phoenix Suns and Toronto Raptors.
The Suns were involved in trade talks for Irving before Brooklyn agreed to the package Dallas offered. Phoenix is ready to pivot if the Nets’ other star player wants a change of scenery, according to Chris Haynes. The Raptors also make sense as a potential landing spot, and they could be laying the foundation for a future deal. SNY’s Ian Begley said the following about conversations between Toronto and Brooklyn:
A couple of notes on Nets & Kyrie Irving, including members of BKN touching base with TOR on a deal during their negotiations with teams on Irving: pic.twitter.com/B85X5iliCH
— Ian Begley (@IanBegley) February 5, 2023
Could the subsequent deal involve Durant? Based on the Nets’ desire to load up the roster around their one remaining star player, that’s probably not preferred. But, anything can happen at this point.
Maybe Durant wants to at least finish the season in Brooklyn to see what happens. And once that’s done, maybe he asks to be traded again this summer. If the Nets hold onto him past Thursday, another scenario could be a reunion with the Golden State Warriors.
At least, that’s what one NBA general manager thinks could happen. They also think the possibility of re-acquiring Durant could impact how Golden State operates at the trade deadline (quote via Heavy.com):
They’ve got these young guys and some people in that organization want to hang onto them, some want to move off them and win now. Lie, trade them on Thursday. But that is probably not going to happen, and the middle road is, hang on to them for this year and if they don’t pull things together, use them to go and make an offer for KD. They’d love to bring KD back to finish out his career with Steph and Klay.
Durant was with the Warriors from 2016-19. Golden State landed in the NBA Finals each season, coming away victorious twice (2017 and 2018).
So, this story has different levels of juiciness to it. First, everyone will be watching and holding their breath to see if something goes down by Thursday. If not, his status will once again be something to watch when the summer hits.
Matt Musico can be reached at matt.musico@xlmedia.com and you can follow him on Twitter: @mmusico8.
