NBA

Why don’t any NBA teams want to help the Nets facilitate Kevin Durant’s trade?

Will he stay or will he go? As the NBA and its fans wait and watch, it appears the chances of the former MVP moving on are getting slimmer by the day.

Ethan MillerAFP

With the battle between the former league MVP and his team now well and truly heated, it’s only bound to get worse with reports suggesting that no team is willing to help out.

No NBA team wants to help the Nets with a Kevin Durant trade

It’s now been more than a month since Kevin Durant rocked the NBA by announcing that he would like to be traded from the Brooklyn Nets. In that time, we’ve seen the big man name his preferred destinations, we’ve seen some ‘close but no cigar’ scenarios involving some of those teams and most recently, we witnessed things getting truly ugly when Durant gave an ultimatum to the team involving both Steve Nash and Sean Marks. Since Durant’s strongarmed approach, Nets owner Joseph Tsai responded by making it clear that he intends to side with the front office and not the player. For the moment, we can only wait and watch.

Yet, there is one thing that complicates the situation even more and that’s what some reports are calling, “a lot of pessimism” surrounding the possibility of a Durant deal being completed in the near future. Indeed, as things stand it would appear that the struggle to find a third or fourth team to facilitate the trade is very real. To an extent, one has to imagine that said pessimism is fueled by both the Nets hope that Durant would walk back on his request and in turn other franchises suspecting that he would as well. Unfortunately for all involved, the Nets star has continued to stand firm.

What happens now with Kevin Durant and the Nets?

To be clear, the Nets are not actually under pressure right now. There’s a little under two months before training camp tips off, which is to say that there is plenty of time for the franchise to either negotiate a better offer for Durant OR negotiate with their star in the hopes of seeing him stay. For the moment, we can only sit tight. As for recent developments, while it is true that the Celtics have been in talks with the Nets about a potential move that would involve Jaylen Brown, it’s understood that those conversations are now weeks old.

Interestingly, the Nets may in fact have some cause for celebration in that Kyrie Irving is now reportedly “in a good place” with the Nets following conflict over contract renewal earlier in the offseason. As we now know, Irving has since chosen to remain with the Nets, but should Durant be moved on it wouldn’t be surprising to see Irving following him out the door. For his part, Irving has expressed a desire to join the Lakers with one year left on his max contract, but nothing has materialized to date. If there is one thing that we can safely assume for the moment, it’s that barring a drastic change in the market, you can expect to see Durant and Irving at training camp in September.

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