When Kevin Durant told the Brooklyn Net he wanted to stay away from the franchise, the biggest discussion in NBA history began.
How do we know this? Because, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, half the league’s teams have already been investigated. But this is not the first time the greatest man of all time has changed teams in the NBA. In fact, over the last 20 years, this has happened again and again, from Shakil O’Neill to Kevin Garnet to Carmelo Anthony and Dwight Howard, just to name a few.
So here are three lessons learned from some of the biggest business demands in NBA history, in order to properly process how the Kevin Durant deal might look like.
Lesson 1: Don’t expect the best players from other teams
Naturally, one team from the state of Brooklyn is looking for the best young player on the other team. That’s what the Los Angeles Lakers did in 2004, when they began discussing the parameters of O’Neill’s landing. His goal? An explosive rogue shooting guard named Dwayne Wade.
The heat quickly turned off the phone.
Finally, Los Angeles called back with a different question: to focus the business around emerging young forward Lamar Odom, who partnered with Wade to take the Miami Heat to an impressive second round in the Eastern Conference playoffs. Several years before landing him as a ban-free agent earlier in the summer.
The heat agreed.
And so it was fixed. Miami sent their second and third best players, Odom and Butler, to Los Angeles with a draft pick in exchange for O’Neill’s services.
So the net will undoubtedly be looking for a premium player from each of Durant’s teammates, but this package looks like the larger version left behind by Miami: promising young players, as well as many draft picks heading to Brooklyn.
Chapter 2: The stars are often called
When a star player requests a trade, they have input on how negotiations take place.
Consider the finally failed talks between the Lakers and the Chicago Bulls in 2007. Kobe Bryant had decided he wanted to play for the Bulls, but in every package the Lakers offered, forward Luol Deng was the focal point for his return to Los Angeles.
There was only one problem: Bryant would not approve of Chicago’s trade deal, which included Deng. Why? Because he didn’t want to wind up in any other position he didn’t have a chance to win the championship.
And so the whole transaction came to a standstill.
How instructive is that for what is happening with Durant now? Two reasons: 1) Teams will not position themselves to trade their rosters so high that they will not find themselves in contention for the title. And, 2) for his part, Durant, either, could not argue with the possibility of joining the team he could not argue with.
Chapter 3: Sometimes he picks up an amazing missing piece
When a team is trying to get a player of Durant’s ability, it doesn’t always happen that he has everything like a team like the Nets are looking for in return.
This is what the LA Clippers learned in 2019 – the last time the league suffered such an earthquake – when Kavi Leonard chose to join them.
However, when Leonard informed the Clippers of his decision, he told the Toronto Raptors, with whom he had just won the NBA Championship, and told the Lakers that he had one condition: he wanted to play. Paul George.
There was only one problem: George was under contract with the Oklahoma City Thunder for several seasons.
This meant the Clippers ’next call was not to set up a party to celebrate Leonard’s arrival – but to Thunder, where Oklahoma City executive vice president and general manager Sam Presty kicked out several players with ink. Gilgius-Alexander to send George to Los Angeles, and the draft in a hurry.
During this discussion, there will be teams that are likely to happen Some Brooklyn property – but not everything. It would be hard for any team to check all the boxes to see what could be the biggest comeback for a star player seen so far in the league.
But what the Nets can do, as Leonard did three years ago, is to tell those teams what they want and work with them to complete the return to get a deal on the line.
Every conversation is unique. But as we look forward to how the Kevin Durant deal could take shape, history shows that the net is working on a variety of factors to find an acceptable deal for their superstar.