Wantaway star Durant to stay on at Brooklyn
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NEW YORK • Brooklyn Nets general manager Sean Marks said on Tuesday that the team and Kevin Durant had agreed to "move forward with our partnership", nearly two months after the forward made a trade request that had captivated league observers.
"We are focusing on basketball, with one collective goal in mind - build a lasting franchise to bring a championship to Brooklyn," Marks said in a statement.
He added that he and the team's head coach Steve Nash and owners Joe Tsai and Clara Wu Tsai met Durant and agent Rich Kleiman in Los Angeles on Monday.
The statement did not explain what made the 33-year-old National Basketball Association (NBA) star have a change of heart.
It is positive news for the Nets, but a spokesman also declined to comment when asked specifically if it meant Durant had rescinded his request and that the team were no longer trying to trade him.
The plight of the player roiled the sport for much of the summer.
Durant initially asked for a trade on June 30 after the Nets were swept in embarrassing fashion by the Boston Celtics in the first round of the Eastern Conference play-offs. He doubled down this month with a request to the ownership that the Nets make a change of their general manager and head coach or set him free.
It now appears that Marks and Nash will keep their jobs and that Durant will remain in Brooklyn as he enters the first season of a four-year, US$198 million (S$275.8 million) extension he signed in August last year.
A two-time NBA Finals Most Valuable Player and four-time scoring champion, Durant joined the Nets as a free agent in 2019 alongside Kyrie Irving.
He averaged 29.9 points, 7.4 rebounds and 6.4 assists in 55 games this past season with the Nets, who traded fellow All-Star James Harden to the Philadelphia 76ers in a blockbuster deal involving Ben Simmons.
Durant, the 2013-14 league MVP, has career averages of 27.2 points, 7.1 rebounds and 4.3 assists in 939 games with the Seattle SuperSonics/Oklahoma City Thunder (2007-16), the Golden State Warriors (2016-19) and the Nets.
Irving, meanwhile, picked up his US$36.5 million option, though the Nets are said to be willing to listen to trade offers.
He played in just 29 games last season after electing not to get vaccinated against Covid-19.
NYTIMES, REUTERS
