Kevin Durant does not have a ‘no trade clause’ and has 4 years left on his $198 million extension and yet is demanding landing spots?
Kevin Durant shook the entirety of the NBA world when he demanded a trade away from the Brooklyn Nets. While Sean Marks and Joe Tsai might have done a splendid job in recruiting them to BKN and away from the New York Knicks, they sure didn’t know how to keep these two polarizing superstars happy with them.
The way that they handled the Kyrie Irving situation in regards to not offering him a max extension led to quite some turmoil within the organization. It seemed as though KD and Kyrie were poised to run it back in Brooklyn for at least another year with the latter opting into his $36 million player option but that clearly isn’t the case any longer.
Both Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving reportedly want to continue to play together but just not on the Brooklyn Nets. Matching nearly $80 million in salary to make that happen would require a Herculean package from rival teams.
Why can Kevin Durant demand a trade to preferred teams?
The biggest reason as to why the package for Kevin Durant alone would be the biggest in NBA history or at the very least, the most valuable, would be due to his contract situation. KD signed a 4 year/ $198 million extension with the Nets last summer with the first year of that extension kicking in this coming 2022-23 season.
Another advantage is that there is no ‘no trade clause’ in the contract and so it’s not up to the 2x champ to veto any trades that he doesn’t like. Given this information, an NBA Redditor was perplexed as to why Durant has any leverage in this whatsoever and that the Nets have no incentive to listen to his preferred destinations.
In recent memory, the only player who got traded to a destination that was out of left field was Kawhi Leonard when he got traded to the Toronto Raptors. The reason as to why trading Kevin Durant to a destination he doesn’t prefer is because the team on the receiving end would not be getting a superstar who wants to be there.
With KD being in the latter stage of his career, he wouldn’t want to end it on a team that he wasn’t fond of and didn’t like. He could simply sit out and ask for a trade away from that team as well. He would lose his game checks of course but that seems like a price that a superstar of his caliber would be willing to pay to be in a preferred situation.