It has been more than a month since star forward Kevin Durant requested a trade out of Brooklyn, and with no indication that any deal is imminent, Steve Bulpett of Heavy.com cites a source who says a meeting between Durant and Nets owner Joe Tsai is expected to take place in the coming days.
“What I’m hearing is that KD is going to meet with the owner this week,” Bulpett’s source said. “He’s going to go directly to the owner, Joe Tsai, sometime this week. We’ll see how that works.”
Assuming that meeting takes place, it’s unclear what would come of it. It’s possible Durant wants to reiterate his request to be moved and to check in on where things stand. It’s also not out of the realm of possibility that he could back off that trade request if he gets certain assurances from Tsai and the Nets.
“I have no idea what’s going to come of that meeting,” the source told Bulpett. “There are some things that KD is unhappy about, and I’m not sure any of that gets fixed here. But maybe it does.”
The most recent solid rumor we heard related to the Durant sweepstakes surfaced last Monday, when ESPN and The Athletic reported that the Celtics had talked to the Nets about a possible deal and had been willing to include Jaylen Brown in their offer. Subsequent reporting has suggested that the offer in question was weeks old, and Bulpett says some of his sources have pushed back against the notion that it was ever really on the table.
The fact that the Celtics’ interest — and Brown’s potential availability — leaked at all didn’t sit well with some people around the NBA, one personnel executive from another club told Bulpett.
“I think there’s some teams that aren’t very happy that when they talk to Brooklyn it gets in the papers,” the executive said. “That doesn’t help. I’ve talked with a couple of teams that are not happy with the rumors that creep out of there through all this. It’s not a good way to do business.”
The exec added that he the Celtics and Nets “haven’t had any conversations for a while” and expressed skepticism that the two teams will get a deal done, according to Bulpett.
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