Will The Brooklyn Nets Actually Begin The 2022-23 Season With Durant And Irving?
In 2019, the Brooklyn Nets saw their championship odds skyrocket when All-Stars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving both decided to team up and join the Nets in free agency.
While Durant missed the entire year rehabbing from his Achilles surgery and Irving only played in 20 games before having shoulder surgery, all was good in Brooklyn knowing that the 2020-21 season had a chance to be very special.
The Nets finished 48-24 that year, earning the 2-seed in the Eastern Conference, and they looked like the favorites in the playoffs, especially since they had traded for All-Star and former league MVP James Harden midseason.
With Harden dealing with a hamstring injury though and Irving out due to a badly sprained ankle, the Nets went to a decisive Game 7 against the Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference Semifinals and if Kevin Durant’s shoe size was just an inch smaller, Brooklyn would have gone onto the Eastern Conference Finals that year and who knows, maybe they wind up winning their first championship in team history.
This truly is one of the biggest “what if’s” in NBA history now because James Harden is now a member of the Philadelphia 76ers, Kyrie Irving’s future remains very unknown and Kevin Durant has requested a trade from the Nets this offseason.
Everything that could have gone wrong for the Nets during the 2021-22 season went wrong and now, they are on the verge of complete disaster and having to hit the “reset button” once more as a franchise.
This leads us to ponder the million-dollar question everyone is asking right now:
“What will happen with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant?”
So much speculation has gone on over numerous social media platforms as to what will occur with the Nets' two superstars, but at the end of the day, nobody really knows what is going to happen and nobody outside of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving have “inside information” on what will happen.
Of course other teams have talked about Brooklyn and trade talks they have had around the league, but there was never any traction on a Kevin Durant trade over the last three weeks and the Nets were never close to getting a deal done with the Los Angeles Lakers involving Kyrie Irving either, according to a few league executives that spoke with SI Fastbreak about the Nets.
At the end of the day though, all roads lead back to both Irving and Durant. They are the only two people who truly know how this will play out because they are the ones holding up the future of the Brooklyn Nets.
Sure, the team could trade them for whatever they want, but Kyrie Irving’s market has slimmed down to just one team in the Los Angeles Lakers and the Nets really are not interested in anything Los Angeles has to offer them, especially All-Star guard Russell Westbrook.
In regards to Durant, the Nets have been in contact with several teams who have offered numerous trade packages to them, yet Brooklyn has not advanced on any trade talks because no team in the league has offered up the value the Nets have placed on one of the best players in the league in Kevin Durant.
Brooklyn was not wanting Deandre Ayton in a sign-and-trade deal from the Phoenix Suns and sources say the Toronto Raptors never offered up reigning Rookie of the Year Scottie Barnes for Kevin Durant in a potential deal.
Rudy Gobert was recently traded from the Utah Jazz to the Minnesota Timberwolves in a deal that netted the Jazz five players and five first-round picks, one of which was a pick swap. Many around the league have said that this trade specifically has killed the trade market and any team that was looking to pursue the Nets’ superstar forward.
If Gobert got his team this kind of value, then Durant should hypothetically bring back double the amount of draft assets as Gobert and at least one proven All-Star talent because when healthy, he is arguably the best player in the NBA.
“The market is dead. The inflation rate that has hit the trade market in this league since the Jazz traded Rudy Gobert is absolutely ridiculous,” one league executive told Fastbreak. “If you ask me, Brooklyn needs to do everything they can to mend the relationships with their guys because if a trade ultimately goes down, they will end up being the biggest losers.
"The Nets are not going to get the same value the Jazz just got for Gobert anymore. Those offers have come and gone.”
Looking at this situation from a big picture standpoint, it truly is not crazy to think that the Nets will quietly work on mending these relationships behind the scenes. Kyrie Irving is obviously unhappy since the team does not want to offer him a long-term contract and it is easy to see where Kevin Durant’s frustrations are coming from as well.
Durant has done everything he can to try and carry the Nets to a title, but at the end of the day, external noise and conflict has internally severed the bond between this team’s front-office and their players.
Simply because of the trade market being shattered this offseason, it is not hard to believe that Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant will be on the Brooklyn Nets roster for the start of the 2022-23 season.
Will this happen though?
Time will tell what the future holds for two of the NBA’s best overall talents.
