Kyrie Irving’s decision this week to opt into the final year of his contract with Brooklyn didn’t calm Kevin Durant’s wandering mind.
Durant asked to be traded on the opening day of NBA free agency, though Irving took the $37 million in front of him with no trade conditions. The Nets are not obligated to trade Durant — he has four years and $198 million left on his contract. But now, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the two and Irving trade before the start of training camp.
Nets owner Joseph Tsai had already reached his limit, multiple sources told The Athletic, after years of injuries, off-court disruptions and playoff failures followed by threats leaked by Irving and Durant during Brooklyn’s contract negotiations with Irving.
Tsai, 58, co-founder of Alibaba Group, China’s largest retailer, was born in Taiwan, attended high school in New Jersey, has two bachelor’s degrees and four college degrees (lacrosse) from Yale and is worth $9 billion, according to Forbes.
As an owner, he stays out of the way of his basketball operations staff, for the most part, giving his blessing to the most important decisions and would otherwise understand/support/not be opposed to the general trend of player empowerment in the modern NBA.
Tsai would understand that under normal circumstances stars at the level of Durant and Irving could force deals one year after signing max extensions (Durant) or try to negotiate another max contract (Irving) publicly if that’s what it’s all about . Tsai has sat down at the negotiating table in his career.
In this particular set of circumstances surrounding Durant, Irving and the Nets, things got more complicated than planned. Brooklyn spent three full seasons paying the luxury tax, failed to get out of the second round of the playoffs, fired a popular coach, traded a lot of assets to bring in another star in James Harden, and then was forced to trade him because he had lost all faith in Irving’s commitment to victory. This led to the acquisition of a max contract player who wasn’t physically and mentally unable to play at all last season (Ben Simmons), while neither Irving nor Durant came close to playing in half the Nets’ games. Add to that Irving’s refusal to get a COVID-19 vaccine and team cohesion that affected last season, and it’s no wonder Tsai has reached his limit.
This is how Tsai got to the point where both can be traded.
In the summer of 2019, the Nets made a big splash by signing both star free agents. It was a package deal. Irving signed a four-year, $137 million contract, ending his two tumultuous seasons in Boston. Durant came aboard via a four-year, $165 million sign-and-trade despite tearing his Achilles in the previous NBA Finals with the Warriors and would miss the entire 2019-20 season. It was a risk any team would take against two championship- and gold-medal-winning players who are as gifted as anyone in the NBA at their respective positions.
In Year 1, with Durant out, Irving got off to a strong start but suffered a shoulder injury. As The Athletic detailed in a previous story about Irving, he sought so many opinions on his shoulder, outside of Nets doctors, that it delayed either his return or surgery or both for weeks. It’s been a frustrating time for the franchise, but Irving is by no means the only injured star to take care of his body into his own hands. That’s the cost of doing business.
The Nets headed to the playoffs in a pandemic-shortened season, and Irving was out for the rest of the year with shoulder surgery when Brooklyn fired coach Kenny Atkinson.
The following offseason, when Irving and Durant were healthy and getting ready to play, the duo hopped on the KD podcast and downplayed the role new coach Steve Nash would play in leading the team. Irving took about a week off the team early in the 2020-21 campaign, voluntarily breaking COVID-19 protocols to attend a family birthday party. While out, he was spotted on a Zoom call for a local politician minutes before the Nets were to play a game.
It was around this time that Brooklyn traded promising center Jarrett Allen, talented guard Caris LeVert, two other players and their 2027 first-round draft picks for Harden. Tsai and GM Sean Marks have staked the team’s entire future on winning now, adding Harden to an all-star tandem already under contract.
Durant has been injured most of this season. He played in 35 of a possible 72 games. And when the playoffs rolled around, Harden, and then Irving, were injured. The Nets still nearly beat the Milwaukee Bucks in the second round, coming within striking distance of Durant’s thumb to advance to the conference finals.
Then there was last season. You remember the highlights and low lights. A few things to keep in mind, though, when trying to figure out how Tsai might be looking at his big picture with the Nets right now:
• Tsai is a big supporter of the COVID-19 vaccine. He received at least four doses of it.
• Durant urged the organization to revert to its original position and allow Irving to play and work out on the road, according to sources. Brooklyn was second in the East on the day of Irving’s first game.
• Not only did the Nets get worse with Irving back on the team (falling all the way to the playoffs), but it was with Irving in charge that Harden decided he wouldn’t re-sign in Brooklyn and wanted to be traded to the 76ers. Simmons, Seth Curry and Andre Drummond came from Philly, but Simmons never panned out – a disappointment for the entire franchise.
• Almost as an aside, Harden declined the $47 million player option on his contract this week, with a promise to the Sixers to sign a long-term, team-friendly deal so they can add more pieces. That literally almost never happens in the NBA. Meanwhile, Brooklyn owes Simmons more than $100 million over the next three seasons. He hasn’t played a single minute since June 2021 and is coming off back surgery.
Most of that ties back directly to Irving and Durant. Irving played in 103 of a possible 226 regular season games for Brooklyn; Durant, with this missed 2019-20 campaign, can only count 90 games.
If both have played their last game with Brooklyn, it’s a safe bet that the Nets are heavily involved in trades that suit all parties, if only because it’s likely to yield the most profits.
What Tsai won’t do is ask Durant to honor his contract in Brooklyn.
Because he’s had enough.
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(Photo by Joseph Tsai: Brad Penner/USA Today)
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