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Joel Embiid and other NBA stars lost their minds over Kevin Durant’s trade request

By Josh Hill

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - DECEMBER 30: Joel Embiid #21 of the Philadelphia 76ers shouts at Kevin Durant #7, James Harden #13 and LaMarcus Aldridge #21 of the Brooklyn Nets during the fourth quarter at Barclays Center on December 30, 2021 in New York City. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Dustin Satloff/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - DECEMBER 30: Joel Embiid #21 of the Philadelphia 76ers shouts at Kevin Durant #7, James Harden #13 and LaMarcus Aldridge #21 of the Brooklyn Nets during the fourth quarter at Barclays Center on December 30, 2021 in New York City. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Dustin Satloff/Getty Images) /
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Kevin Durant officially wants out of Brooklyn, and his fellow NBA stars went into an absolute frenzy on Twitter once the news broke. 

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before, but Kevin Durant is spending his Fourth of July holiday weekend hunting for a new team.

It was six years ago that we all sat around wondering if the once unbelievable idea of Kevin Durant joining the Golden State Warriors would come to fruition. It was three years to the day that Durant, after leaving the Warriors in free agency, took his talents to Brooklyn to try and form a superteam with Kyrie Irving.

Once again we will spend a Fourth of July weekend wondering what the future holds for Durant. If the man wants the holiday named after him that badly, there has to be better ways to go about making it happen.

The dust has hardly settled, but Durant reportedly already has a group of teams in mind for where he’d like the Nets to trade him. Both the Phoenix Suns and Miami Heat are on his list, which both offers up tremendous content opportunities but also doesn’t seem to help Durant’s narrative. Depending on who you ask, Durant either destroyed his legacy when he joined the Warriors, did so when he left and tried to claim all of the credit, or did it when he went to Brooklyn and promptly failed to win anything of note. That narrative was picked back up when the Warriors won the NBA Finals this year without Durant and has become a raging inferno once again thanks to his desire to once again move on and do so to teams that’s already on the doorstep of an NBA title.

Durant has always been an easy target and his trade request once again made him the center of everyone’s attention.

NBA stars lost their minds on Twitter after Kevin Durant’s trade request

Durant’s trade request came three years to the day since he originally signed with the Nets. Fans were rightfully blown away by the request but perhaps no group of people were more shook or had more fun reacting to the news than Durant’s fellow NBA stars.

Both Joel Emiid and Ja Morant seemingly took the opportunity to sharpen their trash talk skills and barb Durant for his trade request.

Embiid has mastered the art of fusing on-court trash talk with social media, whether that be targeting his actual rivals or just reacting to the sports world in general. Ja’s heel turn has been a little more sudden, but is nevertheless one of the most interesting and satisfying developments regarding the next generation of superstars coming up in the league/

Other players tabled the trolling and simply reveled in the lunacy of what happened.

https://twitter.com/TheTraeYoung/status/1542592327893618690?s=20&t=5qvuW48zH9K-E8LFIztHvA

Does Kevin Durant have a no trade clause?

This is perhaps the juiciest part of the whole drama saga. Durant does not have the right to block a trade due to the lack of a no trade clause in his contract. It’s one of the more baffling things about the whole situation but is also a key piece of evidence for the Anti-KD crowd who can point to it and claim it as proof of some backdoor escape if things went south in Brooklyn.

Taking the tinfoil hat off for a moment, the fact that Durant doesn’t have a trade clause adds some extra texture to what is essentially a summer of unofficial free agency for him. The Nets are going to want the best possible return, but a team like Sacramento probably knows that Durant would simply refuse to play there, therefore, giving them absolutely zero incentive to make a deal.

Rather, this is going to be free agency on steroids. Fans and players of contending teams might get off a joke or troll on Twitter after this news, but the idea of him playing for the Phoenix Suns is as ridiculous and plausible as were rumors of him leaving Oklahoma City to join the Warriors.

With Durant, nothing can ever be counted out.

The lack of a trade clause could be seen as leverage for the Nets, but no team in its right mind would trade for Durant if he has no interest in playing for them. So while he doesn’t officially have a trade clause, much like how this isn’t officially free agency, Durant holds the cards.

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