Early returns on Kevin Durant’s ultimatum to Joe Tsai should not good, mentioned Brian Windhorst Tuesday.
“Doing it now’s a maneuver, a maneuver that I don’t assume labored as a result of as I speak to groups on the market, they don’t assume this elevated his commerce demand. They assume this damage his commerce worth,” mentioned the ESPN author on NBA At the moment.
It’s typically believed that KD’s ultimatum — commerce me or hearth Sean Marks and Joe Tsai — was aimed toward accelerating commerce talks which by all accounts are at a standstill. The Nets merely should not keen to considerably decrease their desired return for arguably the league’s finest participant: reportedly an all-Star degree participant, as many as seven first rounders and swaps, and one other rotation participant.
Windhorst mentioned that Tsai, in his tweet endorsing the entrance workplace and training employees, additionally urged that the Nets won’t drop their value.
“I need to level to the second half of the Joe Tsai tweet. I feel it’s clearly essential to have a look at the primary sentence which is that he’s not going to fireside Sean Marks and Steve Nash. However the second sentence is admittedly the sentence that the league paid consideration to it. And it appears benign when he says ‘We make selections for the very best curiosity of the Brooklyn Nets.’
“However I’m going to decode that for you. What he’s mainly saying is regardless of what Kevin Durant is making an attempt do right here, we’re not going to vary what our expectations are for a commerce and in case you are not traded, we anticipate you to be reporting to camp to proceed the 4 years you might have left in your contract.”
Nonetheless, not everyone seems to be so sure that Durant will be a part of the Nets in camp. Kristian Winfield reported. “A supply,” based on Winfield, “pushed again on the concept Durant will present as much as coaching camp in September if his request goes unfulfilled.”
In the meantime, there may be report by Adam Begley of SNY that Durant has added the Celtics to his checklist of most popular groups. Begley additionally notes that Durant needs to play with Marcus Sensible, the reigning Defensive Participant of the 12 months, however the Nets need Sensible.
Adam Himmelsbach of the Boston Globe, quoting a “supply”, supplied particulars of the Nets-Celtics talks. including that there’s no present “traction” between the 2 groups, additional confirming Windhorst’s level.
In response to the supply, Brooklyn initially tried to pry each Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown from Boston. That proposal went nowhere, after all. The supply confirmed current stories that Brooklyn later shifted its focus to a deal centered on Brown, Marcus Sensible, and an enormous haul of future first-round draft picks. However the Celtics weren’t .
The Nets coaching camp opens in seven weeks.
