While Kevin Durant did rescind his trade request and decided to stay with the Brooklyn Nets franchise, some NBA executives believe that he miscalculated and now looks like a fool.
Basketball writer Steve Bulpitt of Heavy.com reports that rival execs from around the league are sounding off on Durant following the trade request fiasco. Bulpitt reported that one exec had said “the guy who miscalculated was Kevin Durant, because he took that four-year deal. He didn’t take a page out of LeBron’s book and take a shorter-term deal. LeBron’s bet on himself, and that’s kept him in a leverage position with his team. With all his teams really.”
Via Heavy.com:
“The moment a player comes out and mouths those famous words: ‘Hey, man, get me the [expletive] up out of here,’ he just discounted himself. He just hurt not only his prospect for a trade happening quickly, but he has just put his franchise in a position of losing leverage, because people think, ‘Well, I get a fire sale price, because that guy has already indicated he wants out of there.’
And then Kevin doubled down on the same stupidity by giving an ultimatum designed to force their hand. He don’t really feel all that badly about Sean Marks and Steve Nash. He probably really likes them. They pretty much let him have free rein of the franchise. He doesn’t really have a problem with them,” a former coach told Bulpitt. “But he knew that he was looking for another leverage point to give them greater urgency to trade him even at a discounted price. So he came out with this ultimatum, and Joe Tsai looked at him and said, ‘Nah, bruh. Sorry. Not going to happen.’”
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