A LITTLE AFTER after 12:00 pm ET Thursday, the Brooklyn Nets front office decided to put a stop to it. They drove back to the local inn, where they holed up as a group during the trade deadline week to complete what turned into a sad mission: the ultimate elimination of the greatest superteam that never existed.
The Nets have been waiting for their Phoenix Suns colleagues for the last couple of hours, who, 2,500 miles away, have been pacing a dimly lit training facility, looking at spreadsheets and whiteboards to see if they can meet the high price the Nets are asking for their game. superstar forward.
“No one wants to give up on Kevin Durant,” Nets general manager Sean Marks told Sportzshala. “There are so many things that make it special. They don’t happen very often and our franchise is better because we had him here. There is no doubt about that.”
On Monday afternoon, Duran and business partner Rich Kleiman asked to meet. It was gloomy. Less than 24 hours earlier, the Nets had traded Kyrie Irving to the Dallas Mavericks after a tumultuous three-day struggle. Now Duran was repeating the words he had said last June on the eve of the release of agents who turned the NBA over to their side for several weeks.
Again, Durant told Marks that he wanted to be traded. Only this time, Durant specifically asked to be traded to the Suns. The group was then FaceTimed Nets owner Joe Tsai, who was at his home in San Diego, with the decision.
It wasn’t fiery. It was a request, not a demand, that Irving made to the Nets last Friday. More importantly, unlike Durant’s public trade request last June and Irving’s maneuver, this was to remain a private appeal. Durant didn’t want a bidding war and days of intense speculation and online obsession.
It was not an easy request to remain silent.
Source: www.espn.com
