This weekend both Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving talked separately about their time in Brooklyn, and what were the reasons behind them wanting to try their luck somewhere else in the NBA. In the case of the current Suns star, he personally requested a trade before the start of the 2022/23 season and waited for the Nets to honor his desire until February of this year.
He recently addressed what was going through his mind when he decided he wanted to leave New York for a new challenge.
“I did try. They just refused to get rid of me,” Durant shared. “I tried, but time ran out. I wasn’t going to miss no games because of this whole thing. So once the season rolled around, I was just like whatever happens, it happens, and I just get ready for the season. So it worked out perfect timing, the way it’s supposed to.”
Kevin Durant cites Nets’ inconsistency as reason for trade demand https://t.co/mh5NNaGVob pic.twitter.com/wF2gLNxLJY
— New York Post (@nypost) November 25, 2023
Let’s recap and give a little context. The veteran forward joined Brooklyn in the summer of 2019, but missed the entire first campaign as he recovered from his achilles heel injury. He then participated in 129 matches for the Nets before being transfered to Phoenix at the start of the year.
“In Brooklyn? Yeah, it just wasn’t no consistency, no continuity on who we were as a team,” Kevin revealed. “And when you want to win a championship, you’ve got to build an identity from Day 1, and it was just a lot of circumstances that were out of the players’ control that got in the way of us building our continuity.”
During the Durant era, the Nets only conquered one playoff series, despite playing alongside Irving and James Harden at one point. The Beard eventually requested a trade and was sent to the 76ers, same as Kyrie did before he was transferred to Dallas.
“That’s just the business of basketball,” the former league MVP said. “That’s just the NBA in general. But we all got better as individual players, and we learned a lot from that experience — everybody from executives to players — and we can go about our NBA experience with more knowledge now.”
Irving admitted that he felt FOMO when he learned that Durant and Harden were joining forces in Brooklyn
Back when Harden was joining up with Durant in Brooklyn, Kyrie Irving revealed he felt fear of missing out and laments never living up to the potential of the team they possessed. Now that he’s trying out his luck as Luka Doncic’s co-star with the Mavericks, he’s spoken clearly about his time with the Nets.
“We could sit here and play to what-if scenarios all day, bro,” Irving shared. “But for me, even when James came to Brooklyn — and a lot of my peers, and a lot of my teammates I’ve played with — I’ve always told them that ‘This is bigger than just us being teammates right now, the present moment. You’ve got to do what is best for you.’
Now that his Brooklyn days are in the past, he said that he doesn’t view this time of his life as “disappointing,” despite missing out on the opportunity of truly contending for a title with the Nets.
“I don’t look at that aspect of my career as disappointing. I think just think it’s kind of like one of those times that got away, the girl that got away… and it’ll hurt you for the rest of your life. You’re like looking at it, you got a great wife, kids, and all that. So I don’t second-guess it, I don’t wanna get in trouble with my wife. I’m not thinking about nobody else, baby. But it just feels like that FOMO [fear of missing out], you missed out on something great,” the point guard shared.
