We interrupt your football feeding frenzy to remind you that the NBA drama never ends.
Most recently, Nets superstar Kevin Durant recently met with the owner of the team, Joe Tsai, and according to Shams Charania Durant issued an ultimatum directly to the owner of either trade me or fire the GM and Head Coach.
The Nets have made their decision and will apparently not fire their leadership duo to appease Kevin Durant.
Of course this was the right decision for the Nets. If they fired their GM and Head Coach at the direct request of Durant, they'd also have to make the hiring of their replacements at his request and every other organizational decision would have to be approved by Durant. If the Nets chose KD, they'd be handing over the entire franchise to Durant. He knew that wasn't happening and that was the point.
The purpose of Durant's ultimatum wasn't to stay in Brooklyn, it was to force the Nets to publicly pick against Durant. Now the relationship can justifiably turn adversarial.
And when a team/player relationship turns adversarial, the advantage goes to the player.
Kevin Durant isn't done calling the shots and that means the Suns aren't out of the Kevin Durant sweepstakes.
The Nets want to be in control but nothing is more toxic to an organization than an unhappy superstar. If the Nets try and force KD to show up to training camp, he'll just mope around until he gets his wish. The longer it drags on, the more it favors the player.
All Kevin Durant has to do to determine where he plays next is make it known privately or publicly what his preferred destination is and that's where he'll end up. You think the Sixers offered the best trade for James Harden or that the Nets had to make something work with the Sixers because that's the only place James Harden wanted to be?
If Kevin Durant declares his love for Phoenix and its the only place he wants to be, the two sides will have to make a deal no matter what other teams may be offering.
If he doesn't declare his love for Phoenix, the Suns probably lose any bidding war to a variety of other teams.
The Suns aren't out of the sweepstakes yet unless after the latest twist in this saga they want to be.
Given their complete lack of improvement this offseason, like the Nets, they might not have any choice. They need Kevin Durant almost as badly as the Nets need to dump him.
Sounds like a beginning of a very interesting relationship to me.