Mobile Menu
HEADLINES

Kevin Durant

Bucks, Heat Also Among Harden’s Preferred Trade Destinations

December 10th, 2020 at 8:35am CST by Luke Adams

James Harden now has the Bucks and Heat among his preferred trade destinations, sources tell Shams Charania of The Athletic. Milwaukee and Miami join Brooklyn and Philadelphia as the top landing spots on Harden’s wish list.

As we observed on Tuesday when we wrote about Harden adding the Sixers to his list of preferred destinations, the Rockets are under no obligation to send the former MVP to one of the teams on his list, since he has multiple years left on his contract and doesn’t have the ability to veto trades. However, it’s possible those clubs would be more willing to offer significant packages for Harden if they know he wants to play for them.

Neither Milwaukee nor Miami looks like an ideal trade partner for Houston, however, given the Rockets’ asking price of an All-Star caliber player plus several young players and/or draft picks. Both the Bucks and Heat have traded away multiple future first-round picks and/or pick swaps, compromising their ability to build an offer heavy on draft assets.

As for potential centerpieces, Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo would presumably be off the table in any deal with Miami, while Milwaukee obviously isn’t moving Giannis Antetokounmpo.

The Bucks have other former All-Stars in Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday, but neither is on a particularly team-friendly contract — Middleton is owed $147MM over four years, while Holiday can reach free agency in 2021. Tyler Herro would be an intriguing target in any deal with the Heat, but has only played one season, so the Rockets would have to be awfully high on his potential to accept a package built around him.

The Nets and 76ers are still atop Harden’s wish list, according to Charania, who says the 31-year-old has been “resigned to the belief” that he can no longer compete for a championship in Houston.

However, Charania hears that the Rockets have no interest in a Brooklyn offer that doesn’t include Kevin Durant or Kyrie Irving. A Sixers offer would likely have to include Ben Simmons, but new head coach Doc Rivers has “privately made clear” that he wants an opportunity to try to maximize the potential of the Simmons/Joel Embiid duo, Charania writes.

General manager Daryl Morey and the Philadelphia front office, having added sharpshooters Seth Curry and Danny Green to complement Simmons and Embiid, appear committed to keeping their two young stars for the time being.

Harden is currently going through the NBA’s coronavirus testing process and will have to register six negative tests before he’s cleared to practice with the Rockets. According to Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle, Harden only requires three negative tests to begin individual workouts, and Charania suggests the superstar guard is expected to have a workout in front of team personnel soon.

According to Charania, Harden has “maintained a dialogue” with trusted Rockets assistant coach John Lucas, even as he has been non-communicative at times with the club’s front office.

Retweet 2 Share 0 Send via email0

Nets Notes: Prince, LeVert, Green, Irving

December 4th, 2020 at 9:35pm CST by Dana Gauruder

There are questions about how Nets forward Taurean Prince fits into a 3-and-D role on a team featuring Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. Despite that, Brooklyn’s front office is not inclined to pursue a salary-dump trade involving Prince, let alone attaching a pick to make it happen, sources told ESPN’s Zach Lowe. Prince is due to make approximately $12.6MM during the upcoming season and another guaranteed $13.3MM in the 2021/22 season before his contract expires. Prince averaged 12.1 PPG and 6.0 RPG during last season but shot just 33.9% from long range.

We have more on the Nets:

  • Caris LeVert is well aware that his name has been bandied about in trade rumors, according to Brian Lewis of the New York Post. LeVert, whose three-year, $52.5MM extension kicks in this season, is often mentioned in rumors involving a third star to join forces with Durant and Irving. “I try not to pay attention to it, but it’s hard when you turn on TV and see certain things, when you turn on your social media and see certain things,” he said. “I just worry about the team, myself, putting in work every day.”
  • Veteran forward Jeff Green has known Durant since childhood and he’s thrilled they’re rejoining forces with the Nets, Lewis writes in a separate story. They played together in Seattle and Oklahoma City. “That’s where the friendship started to build, and then it just continued to build over the years and grow stronger,” said Green. “So I’m excited for this opportunity to play alongside him.”
  • Irving seems to be planning a media blackout this season, as Malika Andrews of ESPN tweets. Rather than doing a press conference heading into camp, Irving issued a statement. He wrote in part, “My goal this season is to let my work on and off the court speak for itself.”
Retweet 2 Share 0 Send via email0

Nets Notes: Durant, Harden, LeVert, Irving, More

December 1st, 2020 at 4:42pm CST by Luke Adams

Asked today about reports that he and James Harden have talked about teaming up in Brooklyn, Nets forward Kevin Durant dismissed the idea that such a plan has been in the works, as Adam Zagoria of Forbes.com writes.

“I don’t know where you making these stories up that me and James talked about any of this at a workout,” Durant said on a conference call with reporters. “I don’t know where that came from. James is a friend of mine, but I let the front office handle all of that stuff.

“I was just so focused on working out,” he continued. “I heard all the noise and I heard that James potentially wanted to come to the Nets but anybody could make up stories. Anybody can write a story and it gets some traction so nothing’s ever set in stone until it’s set in stone.”

While the Nets have been frequently linked to Harden in recent weeks, it doesn’t sound like they ever made any real progress on a trade for the Rockets star. Shams Charania of The Athletic suggested during an appearance on Complex’s Load Management podcast that Brooklyn doesn’t have the sort of young star that would appeal to Houston as the centerpiece of a package for Harden.

Here’s more on the Nets:

  • Charania also said on the Load Management podcast that the Nets were unwilling to include Caris LeVert in their trade offer for Jrue Holiday last month, as NetsDaily relays. According to Charania, Durant and Kyrie Irving view LeVert as “a very significant part of this team.”
  • Durant spoke to reporters today about the challenges of recovering from an Achilles tear, writes Scott Thompson of SNY.tv. “Those milestones of learning how to walk, learning how to run, jump again and getting used to certain movements again, I think that’s underestimated,” Durant said. “People don’t realize that the Achilles ligament is one of the strongest ligaments in your body. So for that to pop, you gotta build that up and that takes a while.”
  • Asked today about whether Durant and Irving will be load-managed during the 2020/21 season, Nets head coach Steve Nash acknowledged that the two stars likely won’t play all 72 games, per Michael Scotto of HoopsHype. However, Nash didn’t suggest there’s any set plan in place for resting those returning All-Stars.
  • Nash said today that he plans on having Mike D’Antoni lead the Nets’ offense and Jacque Vaughn lead the team’s defense, but his entire staff of assistants will provide input on both sides of the ball (Twitter link via Ian Begley of SNY.tv).
  • In case you missed it, Brooklyn announced its initial 20-man training camp roster earlier this afternoon.
Retweet 1 Share 0 Send via email0

Nets Rumors: Durant, Harden, Harris, Ibaka

November 20th, 2020 at 9:29am CST by Arthur Hill

The Nets aren’t hiding their optimism about Kevin Durant with the new season just weeks away, writes Brian Lewis of The New York Post. Durant has been out of action since suffering a ruptured Achilles tendon during the 2019 NBA Finals, but his recent workouts have players and management believing he can return to an MVP level.

“I don’t think anybody is more excited than Kevin himself to get back on the court. He’s mentioned numerous times he can’t wait to be back, in Barclays, wearing the Nets jersey and being out there,” general manager Sean Marks said in an interview Thursday on the YES Network . “As it pertains to how those guys look, what we’ve seen — they’ve been back in our gym now a couple days — the feedback from the performance team on how they’ve looked is they look terrific. It’s been remarkable to watch Kevin’s development and the way he’s attacked his rehabilitation over the course of the last year. We’re all champing at the bit and excited to see him out there.”

Players who participated in pickup games with Durant during the past month in Los Angeles also had glowing reports, with Jarrett Allen telling Basketball News, “I’ll just keep it short and simple: KD is back again.”

There’s more this morning from Brooklyn:

  • Marks isn’t addressing questions about James Harden, who reportedly asked the Rockets to trade him to the Nets to reunite with Durant, Lewis tweets. Marks is limited in what he can say about a potential deal because of tampering rules. “All you can do is prepare yourself to put the best possible roster forward,” Marks said. “…We just have to be flexible for everything that happens, and put the best roster forward.”
  • Re-signing Joe Harris will be the team’s top priority when free agency officially kicks off this afternoon, Lewis notes in a separate story. One of the league’s top three-point shooters, Harris is reportedly eager for the chance to play alongside Durant and Kyrie Irving. “Those are guys I’ve gotten close with now that I’ve been with them this past year,” Harris said. “They’re obviously incredible players. You see what they’re able to do when they are healthy and playing. I don’t think there’s anybody in the NBA who wouldn’t want to play with those guys.”
  • Durant has been recruiting Serge Ibaka, his former teammate in Oklahoma City, but the Nets may not be able to afford him, Lewis adds. Brooklyn is limited to the taxpayer exception of $5.7MM, while several other teams interested in Ibaka can offer the full MLE of $9.3MM.
Retweet 2 Share 0 Send via email0

Atlantic Notes: Raptors, I. Stewart, Durant

November 10th, 2020 at 6:48pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum

The Raptors might be well-served to consider using either their No. 29 or No. 59 pick during the 2020 draft as a “draft-and-stash” option, selecting a player they know won’t arrive in the NBA until at least the 2021/22 season, writes Blake Murphy of The Athletic.

Limited rotation space for unproven players, the expected development of current Toronto youth, and the compressed offseason are all factors that could point to the draft-and-stash route, Murphy notes. The Raptors face some interesting offseason options, with key role players Fred VanVleet and Serge Ibaka entering free agency.

There’s more out of the NBA’s Atlantic Division:

  • Athletic 6’9″ University of Washington big man Isaiah Stewart, a Rochester, NY native, appears to be a viable candidate for the Knicks to draft with the No. 27 pick in the 2020 draft, per Marc Berman of the New York Post. “The big thing about Isaiah is he’s a culture changer — he’s all about the right stuff,’’ his Washington head coach Mike Hopkins said. New York’s roster, of course, is already loaded with an array of power forwards, though many can become free agents this fall. Hopkins compared Stewart to All-Star Heat center Bam Adebayo and Clippers power forward/center Montrezl Harrell.
  • Nets forward Kevin Durant has been practicing at the Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks, CA, as he continues to rehabilitate from an Achilles tear suffered during the 2019 NBA Finals. Durant has logged court time with fellow Nets Kyrie Irving, Caris LeVert, Spencer Dinwiddie, DeAndre Jordan, Taurean Prince and Jaylen Hands, plus other pros, and is receiving rave reviews, according to Brian Lewis of the New York Post.
  • Legendary Hall of Fame Celtics power forward and broadcast Tommy Heinsohn passed away this week. The six-time All-Star and eight-time champ was 86.
Retweet 2 Share 0 Send via email0

Steve Nash Embraces Nets’ Championship Expectations

October 27th, 2020 at 3:43pm CST by Luke Adams

With Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving due back from injuries and the Nets mulling additional roster upgrades this offseason, new head coach Steve Nash told season ticket holders during a virtual town hall on Tuesday that he’s embracing the club’s rising expectations for the 2020/21 season.

“We’re playing for a championship,” Nash said, according to Tim Bontemps of ESPN. “I don’t want to say that anything less than a championship is not a success because you never know what happens in life, you never know the way the ball bounces. Fortune is a big part of winning an NBA championship.

“But we are playing for a championship and we’re going to build accordingly. We’re going to frame everything we do in the lens of, ‘Is this a championship characteristic or is this worth championship quality?'”

Although the Nets posted a 35-37 record and were quickly swept out of the first round of the postseason in 2019/20, oddsmakers and sports bettors are bullish about the team’s outlook with Durant and Irving in the lineup. BetOnline.ag currently lists Brooklyn in a tie with Boston as the second-most likely team to come out of the East in 2021, just behind Milwaukee.

Still, it remains to be seen how Durant will look coming off his torn Achilles, and there are some questions about how the roster will mesh when everyone’s healthy, as well as Nash’s ability to steer the ship as a rookie head coach. Those questions were only exacerbated when Irving – addressing Nash’s hiring on a recent episode of Durant’s podcast – suggested that he doesn’t “really see us having a head coach.”

However, discussing his coaching plan during today’s town hall, Nash went out of his way to echo Irving’s language about collaboration, according to Bontemps.

“I definitely don’t want to come in with too many hard and fast concepts and designs,” Nash said. “I’d much rather come in with principles — with ideas that allow our players to collaborate with us and allow their personalities and the dynamic between them and the chemistry to have a role in how it evolves.

“People talk about the Phoenix teams I played on, and this sort of revolutionary tone of how it impacted the game, but the truth be told, Mike D’Antoni‘s brilliance in much of that was he allowed it to evolve instead of getting in the way.”

Retweet 4 Share 0 Send via email0

New York Notes: Durant, Harris, Oladipo, Knicks

October 23rd, 2020 at 10:01am CST by Arthur Hill

Medical experts are optimistic about Kevin Durant‘s chances to bounce back from his torn Achilles tendon, writes Brian Lewis of The New York Post. The Nets‘ star forward hasn’t played since suffering the injury in Game 5 of the 2019 NBA Finals, but he showed some signs of progress in workouts before before the hiatus.

Durant will be in the second season of a four-year, $164MM contract with Brooklyn, and the franchise is hoping that he and Kyrie Irving will turn it into an instant contender. Durant was only 30 when the injury occurred and turned 32 last month, so that gives him an advantage over players such as Patrick Ewing, Isiah Thomas and Kobe Bryant, who had similar injuries later in their careers.

“That’s better for him, so I don’t see anything holding him back,” said Dr. Laith Jazrawi, chief of the division of sports medicine at NYU Langone Sports Health. “The only thing is he hasn’t played for a year-and-a-half, so it’ll take time to get back into the rhythm. Some people are going to say ‘Oh, it’s because he had his Achilles (injury).’ That’s not true. It’s that when anyone doesn’t play for a year-and-a-half, it’s just going to take time to get back into the flow. But he should do fine.”

Durant said his love for the game has increased as he tries to work his way back. He recently appeared on the Stewie’s World podcast with Breanna Stewart of the WNBA, who was able to overcome a torn Achilles and return to stardom.

“I just appreciate being in the gym. I appreciate the workouts and the one-on-one sessions and just being in there with the other guys, just the whole routine,” Durant said. “I just have a newfound evolved level of joy for it.”

There’s more from New York City this morning:

Retweet 1 Share 0 Send via email0

Atlantic Notes: Nowitzki, Kanter, Irving, Durant

October 13th, 2020 at 8:45pm CST by Dana Gauruder

New Nets coach Steve Nash reached out to former teammate Dirk Nowitzki but the Hall of Fame-bound big man has no desire to be an assistant coach at the moment, Brad Townsend of the Dallas Morning News reports. Nowitzki is content to spend time with his family in Dallas. “First of all, I don’t know if I could do it (coach) anywhere but here,” he said. “That’s of course first. Second, I just think the timing is not right. I love being with the family. I’m so over basketball at this point that it wasn’t even a thought for me.”

We have more from the Atlantic Division:

  • It’s generally assumed that Celtics center Enes Kanter, who played sparingly during the postseason, will exercise his $5MM player option for next season. That’s not necessarily the case, according to Jared Weiss of The Athletic. It’s more likely that Kanter will test the market and seek a backup role elsewhere, Weiss says. Even if he opts in, the Celtics may use his salary for a draft-night trade, Weiss adds.
  • Former Suns GM Ryan McDonough doesn’t think Nets stars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving were trying to undermine Nash when they talked about “collaborative coaching” on Durant’s podcast earlier this month, Ian Begley of SNY.tv relays. Speaking on The Putback, McDonough felt the star Nets duo was speaking more of the team’s leadership. “It wasn’t a critical comment toward Steve Nash like, ‘Hey, he’s not ready for this.’ It was more, ‘We have a lot of player leadership on the roster,’” he said.
  • The Knicks might shop all their picks on draft night. Get the details here.
Retweet 2 Share 0 Send via email0

Eastern Notes: Durant, Nets, Pistons, Rivers

October 11th, 2020 at 6:59pm CST by JD Shaw

Nets superstar Kevin Durant is hopeful to retire with the organization, though he cautioned it’s only his mindset in the present day, as relayed by the Players’ Tribune Text Message Talk Show with former NBA player Dorell Wright.

“As of today, this second, yes…” Durant texted when asked if Brooklyn would be his final stop.

Durant has previously hinted his willingness to step away from the game around age 35, though these comments were made over two years ago. His current contract with the Nets carries into the next two seasons with a $43.9MM player option for the 2022/23 campaign.

Brooklyn is expected to be at the forefront of title contention next season, sporting a core group of Durant, Kyrie Irving, Caris LeVert and others. The team recently hired Hall of Fame point guard Steve Nash as head coach, a decision approved by Durant himself.

“I’m excited about Coach Nash…I think he’s gonna build a fun culture in Brooklyn….having a former player walk the sidelines is always dope to see,” Durant texted.

There’s more out of the Eastern Conference tonight:

  • Former Long Island head coach and Nets assistant Will Weaver is picking Brooklyn to come out of the East next year, praising the team’s hiring of Nash and the well-put-together roster, he said on the Wingspan Podcast (as relayed by Chris Milholen of NetsDaily). “How can you not feel like that group is the odds on favorite to win the East next year,” Weaver exclaimed as part of a larger quote. “I think the work that has been going on there for years and the building of equity, processes, and culture will allow someone like Steve [Nash] to step in and inherit a lot of that.”
  • Omari Sankofa II of the Detroit Free Press examines a number of Pistons-related topics in his latest mailbag, including the pros and cons of a potential Blake Griffin–Buddy Hield trade. Detroit accrued just a 20-46 record on the season, the third-worst in the Eastern Conference and fifth-worst in the league.
  • Derek Bodner and Rich Hofmann of The Athletic discuss the Sixers’ hiring of Doc Rivers in their latest Sixers Beat podcast. Rivers has proven he can lead a locker room with star-studded players, previously coaching the likes of Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and others. He’s set to inherit a roster featuring Ben Simmons, Tobias Harris and Joel Embiid next season with Philadelphia.
Retweet 1 Share 0 Send via email0

Atlantic Notes: DSJ, Durant, Rivers, Antetokounmpo

October 9th, 2020 at 8:53pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Knicks guard Dennis Smith Jr. will be headed to free agency after next season and he’s trying to make a strong impression on new head coach Tom Thibodeau. He came to New York prior to the team’s mini-camp to work with the coaching staff, Ian Begley of SNY TV reports. Smith will make $5.7MM next season and the team can make him a restricted free agent next offseason if it extends a $7.7MM qualifying offer. Smith has only appeared in 87 games over the last two seasons.

We have more from around the Atlantic Division:

  • Kevin Durant can opt out after the third season of his four-year contract with the Nets. However, his current plan is to finish out his career with Brooklyn, Durant indicated in a message on The Player Tribune’s “Text Message Talk Show” (hat tip to Brian Lewis of the New York Post). “As of today, this second, yes…” Durant texted during the show.
  • If Tyronn Lue doesn’t get another head coaching job soon, he could wind up on Doc Rivers’ staff again, this time with the Sixers, Derek Bodner of The Athletic speculates. Several other Clippers assistants — Sam Cassell, Armond Hill and Rex Kalamian — are also potential candidates to join Rivers in Philadelphia.
  • If Giannis Antetokounmpo signs an extension with Milwaukee, the Raptors would be wise to pursue a major player on the trade market prior to next year’s free agency period, Blake Murphy of The Athletic opines. It would also make it more viable to extend OG Anunoby and increase their comfort level of paying Fred VanVleet his asking price to re-sign.
Retweet 5 Share 0 Send via email0
Load More Posts