Kevin Durant Requested Nets For A Trade: “Refused to Get Rid of Me”

Before the 2022–23 season, Kevin Durant desired to join the Phoenix Suns, but the Nets “refused to get rid” of him, therefore he remained with the team until the trade deadline last season.

Kevin Durant Requested Nets For A Trade: “Refused to Get Rid of Me”

“[The Nets] refused to get rid of me… I tried, but time ran out,” Durant told reporters Saturday. “I wasn’t going to miss any games because of this whole thing… It worked out in perfect timing.”

In June 2022, Durant first asked to be traded by the Nets, preferring to play for the Suns or Miami Heat. But the Nets were “not tied to honouring any of Durant’s preferred destinations and plan to make a deal that allows them the greatest flexibility,” according to a report from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski at the time.

This past season, as the club began to lose games, partly due to Durant’s MCL sprain that kept him out for an extended period of time, Durant was finally moved before the deadline. Due to an impasse over a contract extension between Irving’s team and the Nets, Kyrie Irving was moved before Durant.

In February, Durant made another trade request, this time to the Suns, after the Nets moved Kyrie Irving to the Dallas Mavericks.

In the end, the Nets sent Mikal Bridges, Cameron Johnson, Jae Crowder, and four unprotected first-round selections to Phoenix in exchange for Durant and T.J. Warren.

Durant responded to inquiries from The Post on his time spent in Brooklyn on the other side of the East River and the reasons for his forced transfer at the previous season’s trade deadline.

It all came down to how frustratingly inconsistent the Nets were.

“In Brooklyn? Yeah, it just wasn’t no consistency, no continuity on who we were as a team,” Durant said. “And when you want to win a championship, you’ve got to build an identity from Day 1, and it was just a lot of circumstances that were out of the players’ control that got in the way of us building our continuity.

“That’s just the business of basketball. That’s just the NBA in general. But we all got better as individual players, and we learned a lot from that experience — everybody from executives to players — and we can go about our NBA experience with more knowledge now.”

The transaction didn’t fully close in February, though, until Nets general manager Sean Marks and owner Joe Tsai forced Bridges out. With the Suns having won a record-tying six straight games, Durant is beginning to see his dream come to pass.

Last season, Durant participated in all of the Suns’ postseason games before the club was defeated by the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference playoffs. Durant only made eight appearances in the regular season for the Suns.

Despite missing Friday’s game against the Memphis Grizzlies because of a foot ailment, Durant, 35, is having an MVP-caliber season, averaging 31.4 points, 7.1 rebounds, 5.5 assists, and 1.2 blocks in 15 games while shooting 53.3 percent from the floor and 52.2 percent from deep.

How many rings does kd have without curry?

Kevin Durant has not won any championships without Stephen Curry in his career.
NAME SEASON TPG
Kevin Durant 2022-23 3.3
Kevin Durant 2023-24 3.9
Average 3.3
Total 3.3

Does KD have any Mvps?

Despite still being in his early 20s, American professional basketball player Kevin Durant established himself as one of the finest players of his age by winning the 2013–14 National Basketball Association (NBA) Most Valuable Player (MVP) title.

 

FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE- 

Warren Sapp Wants Patriots Coach Bill Belichick To Retire