Three years in the past, the Brooklyn Nets made a historic splash in free company by hanging coordinated offers for each Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving—offers predicated on the concept that in Brooklyn, the 2 could possibly be extra than simply superstars. Each nice participant wields a sure stage of (usually deserved) affect, however a lot of the reporting across the Nets in latest seasons characterised Durant and Irving as drivers of choices made throughout the group. Coaches have been fired and changed. The roster was reworked to Durant and Irving’s liking, from accent heart DeAndre Jordan becoming a member of the workforce on a $40 million contract to the Nets gutting their younger core to commerce for a 3rd star in James Harden.

Each a kind of selections could be defined via some caveated mix of harm, alternative, and circumstance. But finally, these selections have been made for a similar primary cause that Durant, over the weekend, reportedly adopted up his request to be traded with an ultimatum to both transfer him or hearth the workforce’s head coach and normal supervisor.

This is what the Nets bargained for.

The pull was at all times a part of the enchantment. Brooklyn entered right into a clear-eyed partnership with Durant and, by extension, with Irving as central figures in its future. But even in 2019, there was already a distinction between the 2 stars and what they meant to the group at massive. Sources instructed ESPN’s Kevin Arnovitz that the Nets bringing in Irving—and the caravan of luggage that follows him—was “the price of doing enterprise” to land Durant. Irving was an allowance from the beginning. He turned a crucial a part of the franchise by the truth that an all-time nice needed to play along with his good friend. Maybe that’s unkind to one of many recreation’s most superior shot creators in Irving, but the distinction in standing between the 2 famous person teammates has grown solely extra obvious.

In Irving’s final official press convention of the 2021-22 season, he assured the assembled media that he deliberate to be again with the Nets regardless of a tumultuous yr and its discouraging finish. He spoke not nearly being part of the franchise, however of “managing” it alongside Durant, workforce governor Joe Tsai, and normal supervisor Sean Marks, all of whom Irving named particularly. (Notably not talked about: head coach Steve Nash.) It was a rejection of actuality—or on the very least, a misunderstanding by Kyrie of simply how a lot his actuality had modified.

Irving spoke that day as if he had stepped straight out of a time machine from 2019, utterly oblivious to every little thing he had completed (or would do, within the time journey future tense?) to derail Brooklyn’s season. The uncanny high quality of Irving’s feedback got here from the truth that he appeared to nonetheless imagine his elementary settlement with the workforce was intact. That he nonetheless had the identical diploma of enter. That he was nonetheless a steward of the franchise, even after willfully making himself unavailable for a lot of the season. Brooklyn made excuses and exceptions for Kyrie for months, but his relationship with the franchise shifted when he determined it wasn’t in his curiosity to be an energetic a part of it.

Durant, for his half, stored displaying up at any time when his physique would permit—to the purpose of public concern that he was doing an excessive amount of to maintain his compromised superteam afloat. KD was nonetheless each bit among the finest gamers on this planet final season, and nonetheless each bit the voice the Nets had recruited him to be. Even in upping his calls for to the group now, Durant remains to be doing roughly what he was dropped at Brooklyn to do: declare his intentions and description precisely what he desires. Generally that appears like management. Generally it appears like this.

The true query is whether or not Durant’s commerce request has damaged that dynamic—as Irving broke his—or merely sophisticated it. On one hand, the actual fact that Durant’s future with the franchise is a matter to satisfy over and negotiate speaks volumes. There are some exceedingly sensible causes for the Nets to need one of many world’s finest basketball gamers on their roster for so long as humanly potential—7-foot causes with unthinkable contact and ability and instincts. After which there are the realities of that participant demanding within the clear mild of day that his coach and normal supervisor be fired, creating such a fuss that the workforce governor felt compelled to reply on Twitter.

“Our entrance workplace and training employees have my help,” Tsai tweeted on Monday. “We’ll make selections in the perfect curiosity of the Brooklyn Nets.”

So far as statements go, it’s a bit imprecise. It’s additionally noticeably noncommittal. “Assist” is way from a assure within the fashionable NBA, and it doesn’t take a lot pressure of the creativeness to see how holding Kevin freaking Durant over a coach and govt might nonetheless be in the perfect curiosity of the franchise. All in all, that tweet seems like an insistence by the proprietor of the workforce that instances have modified, at the same time as he meets with Durant to debate how he would possibly persuade him to remain.

The entire state of affairs is a multitude, however the type of mess Brooklyn would possibly fortunately sweep underneath a rug and ignore, if solely it might. It’s inconceivable to exchange Kevin Durant. Hell, it’s onerous sufficient simply to set a good return for Durant in a commerce, a lot much less one suitors can realistically meet. Each ask sounds ridiculous as a result of Durant is a genuinely ridiculous participant. That is perhaps the one cause he’s nonetheless a Internet some six weeks after requesting a commerce—and possibly the actual cause KD is stirring the pot with this ultimatum within the first place. Does he really need Marks and Nash gone? Or is he simply trying to ship a shock via the Nets’ system? You’ll be able to nonetheless create leverage with one foot out the door, particularly when three years of delicate encouragement have already proven you precisely the place to push.