Anyone who has already missed a quarter of their career due to injuries and is now 33 I would not sacrifice my future on. Not surprised no one wants to pay the price tag they want.
Because he knows they aren't championship caliber? With Ayton now being locked into Phoenix, my money is strongly on him going to GS. It is a ***** move for sure but for Steph/Klay theyve already proven they can win without him. If they salt away a 5th and 6th title with him, I'm sure they are fine with whatever narratives pop up. And... Durant has shown that he cannot win without them. Being the softy that he is, he will take whatever title he can get.
They are just going to make him play unhappily for them for the next 4 years and they are going to be a middling team and Houston only really “wins” if he gets hurt and gets shut down which is probably a fairly likely scenario. There is no scenario where they get the talent to offset his loss and they would have already started the tanking if they owned their own picks so in some ways Houston has made it harder for a Durant deal to make sense for Brooklyn.
If they tanked for just the next year they would be getting a top 10 pick. I guess you could come up with ways to do that for one year only but i don’t know. I suppose get that pick then over turn the picks you got for Durant and clear cap space.
I believe 2023 is a pick swap so they would get the worse pick between where Houston picks and where Brooklyn picks. To your point they could still end up with a top 10 pick assuming Houston continues to be a sub 30 win team(which is possible). That’s where this whole thing hinges of Brooklyn going “all in”. They can’t retain one of Durant or Irving because they then become a middle tier team and their own draft equity becomes less useful. I think they are probably looking for a similar situation that Houston played - send him somewhere where they can recoup picks in 23years when the team has started rebuilding from their “window” but I imagine most teams aren’t as desperate as Brooklyn was with building around Durant’s window. It made sense in the moment form a talent perspective but when you looked at the personalities, obviously it was a risky move and boy are they going to pay as a result
yeah that’s what I meant. They have one year and that’s it. I wonder what the rockets want to do with their picks. Move them for a player? Use them to move up in this draft? would a 3-6th pick, bucks pick, all the nets picks and swaps, and Sengun get you victor in the 1st spot? I have no idea
If they keep Durant long term, everybody loses. Nets will be mediocre. Durant will be stuck. Rockets will get mid-round picks from Nets.
They can try to make him play ...... but that's just silly. Remember the Harden situation here? The Rockets figured out after 8 games, going 2-6 that they needed to move on. Completely untenable to try and force him to play. He can feign injury or tell them screw , I'm retiring and while Brooklyn would hold his rights .... they'd be worthless. Then there's the fact of how it would affect future FA signings - No one would want to sign with them. They are better off being bad and getting what they can for Durant than trying to hold him hostage. They really have no choice but to trade him and when they do, they will be a 30 win team at best. I'd have no interest in helping them get better.
I would assume in that scenario the team says - KD, we are going to get rid of Irving right now and you can pick a max guy to bring in and play with you next year but the HUGE irony there is most of the top tier guys available that summer are dudes he has burned bridges with already - Harden, Westbrook, Irving…and Russell will be available but Brooklyn essentially snubbed him coming off an all star season where he led them to the playoffs for…wait for it….Kevin Durant! It’s not the best case scenario for Houston but not all of them are pick swaps - they own a few of BKLYN picks outright so we still get a fringe lotto guys in that scenario.
I don’t know - Durant is entering a minefield here. There has been a lot of talk about player empowerment going awry and KD has turned into the poster boy. If he holds the org hostage with FOUR years on a deal, I’m inclined to think there will be a backlash from the league. Even the players union would have to step away from that fight….plus we are talking about an owner with a bit of an ego trip here who opened his pocket book heavily to facilitate a team Durant both created and destroyed. Surely KD would have to see how that would be potentially damaging to his legacy.
woj has fallen off so much during this kd/nets saga. he really is just a mouthpiece for joe tsai and sean marks. everything he reports is just trying to pump up the value for the nets. can't believe that windhorst of all people is a more reliable source of info...
