Once again, the Nets find themselves in a precarious situation with star point guard Kyrie Irving. As the team and its enigmatic point guard attempt to find a way forward on a contract with the player option deadline looming, some NBA teams believe that if Irving walks or forces a trade, it could dislodge Kevin Durant from the franchise.
There are conflicting reports on just how tied at the hip Durant and Irving, who joined Brooklyn at the same time in 2019, are. According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, some teams are rooting for Irving to walk, on the chance that Durant could become available for a trade.
“There are teams rooting for Irving to opt-out and walk away from the Nets, believing it would give them a chance to cobble together trade packages to acquire Durant,” he reports. “As much as Durant asking out hangs over the Nets, there’s also the reality that four years on his contract will mean he has little, if any, voice on when or where he would be traded. This would be a small-market team’s dream, robbing a goliath of an MVP-level talent whose contractual circumstances would leave him little choice but to play for them.”
Speculation about Irving’s future ramped up on Monday, when The Athletic‘s Shams Charania reported that he and the franchise had reached an “impasse” in their contract negotiations.
Irving has a $36.9 million player option for the 2022–23 season, with a June 29 deadline to exercise it or become a free agent. While there will likely be a robust market for him in free agency—with the Lakers, Clippers and Knicks potentially involved according to Charania—he may not receive the attention that a player of his caliber usually receives after an up-and-down 2021–22. Irving played in just 29 regular-season games, forced to sit out for a majority of the season due to his status as a player unvaccinated against COVID-19. The Nets never gelled, James Harden forced a trade to the 76ers at midseason for Ben Simmons, who never suited up during the year, and the team was swept in the first round of the playoffs by the Celtics.
Earlier this month, Brian Lewis of the New York Post reported that despite the issues with Irving—and the team’s public unwillingness to commit to him long term—the team would likely sign him to a new deal rather than letting him walk away.
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On Wednesday, Lewis reported that the two sides are still working on a deal that would be “good for both [sides].” He reports that the longevity of the deal remains a sticking point, with Irving desiring a long-term deal and the Nets being hesitant to make that type of commitment to the guard, who has played in just 103 of 246 total regular-season games since he signed with the team.
There are also open questions about just how tight Durant and Irving remain after a tumultuous 2021–22. ESPN’s Nick Friedell, who covered the Nets last season, cast doubt on the relationship in a SportsCenter appearance after the Charania report.
“At every turn publicly, [Kevin Durant] has been there to support [Kyrie Irving], to say we need Kyrie, to say Kyrie can win a title with me here in Brooklyn,” he said, via Bleacher Report. “But I can tell you, I’ve been talking to people in the organization the last couple of weeks, when they finally sit down and talk to Kevin throughout the summer, they are trying to figure out if Kevin saw what everybody else saw.
“… The reason that whole season got sidetracked was because they couldn’t count on Kyrie, and they didn’t know if he was going to be out there. And the issue with Kevin is, he wants to win badly, he wants to be loyal to his friend. But I’ve been told that relationship, while very close, isn’t always as close as it appears to be.”
Whether that means Durant is open to moving forward with Ben Simmons and a rebuilt supporting cast in Brooklyn or that he’d seek to start again with a fourth franchise remains to be seen. The NBA will know more about how Irving’s contract situation will factor in a week from today, when he must make a decision on that player option.
