NBA insider: Kevin Durant trade request might have been about getting rid of Kyrie Irving

Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant’s trade request may have had more to do with Kyrie Irving.

Another interesting wrinkle has developed in the Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving drama-filled saga for the Brooklyn Nets.

ESPN’s Dave McMenamin was on The Lowe Post Monday, giving a greater sense of clarity to the chaotic mess that is Brooklyn. He told his ESPN colleague Zach Lowe, “there is a school of thought speaking to the people around the league that they think the Kevin Durant trade request wasn’t actually about him getting out of Brooklyn, it was about getting Kyrie Irving out of Brooklyn.”

McMenamin would add the Nets do not plan on doing any trade involving Irving until things settle down a bit with Durant. This would make some monocom of sense, as Irving exercised his player option for the 2022-23 NBA season late last month. Durant could remove his trade request at any time officially, if he has not done so already. Either way, this team looks to be heading to a divorce.

Let’s try and regroup here for one second to attempt to understand why the Nets cannot play nice.

Kevin Durant trade rumors: Kyrie Irving might be impetus for trade request

It was Durant’s budding friendship with Irving that led him to leave basketball paradise willingly years ago. On paper, the partnership of Durant and Irving could provide the Nets franchise something it has never achieved before: An NBA championship. However, playoff futility, mandates, one former teammate quitting on them and another not playing yet have led us here.

Clearly, one failure to communicate after another has brought us to this juncture in Brooklyn. Confrontation has never been most millennial’s cup of tea anyway. What is true is the rest of the league seems to be in a holding pattern, waiting for the Nets’ best player to figure out what he wants to do. If Durant does not want to play with Irving anymore, he should be honest about that.

In short, Durant might actually want to stay, but may want Irving out. Yes, that is the meat and potatoes of what McMenamin was discussing. Once again, as it is with everything Nets basketball, it makes very little sense. While a trio of Durant, Irving and Ben Simmons should have Brooklyn contending in the Eastern Conference, an unholy triumvirate of odd personalities makes this toxic.

It serves the Nets to get out of business of eccentrics, but this is what they willingly signed up for.