Ian O’Connor: Kevin Durant’s trade away from Steph Curry will forever haunt his career

Kevin Durant is on the brink of being traded from the Brooklyn Nets. His previous trade will forever haunt his NBA career, writes IAN O’CONNOR.

Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry #during the 2019 NBA Playoffs. Picture: Harry How/Getty Images

Kevin Durant deserves no hate from the haters. He came, he saw, and he didn’t conquer, but he did show up to play every single night in Brooklyn and beyond, and delivered one of the biggest shots in the not-so-storied history of New York ball.

He made that fallaway two-pointer with one second left in Game 7 that felt like a three-pointer to everyone watching, a dagger that would have knocked out the eventual champion Milwaukee Bucks if not for what Durant called “my big-ass foot.” His big-ass foot that was barely on the line. In 30 years of writing about the city game as a columnist in this market, I’d never seen a shot more clutch than that one.

The rest of Brooklyn’s two-year mess, not counting Durant’s year spent recovering from the torn Achilles he suffered in a losing three-peat bid with Golden State?

Go ahead and blame Kyrie Irving and James Harden – but mostly Irving – for turning the Big Three into what will be the Big Flee by the time the Nets honour Durant’s trade request. Go ahead and stuff owner Joe Tsai and general manager Sean Marks into a capsule that can be hurled directly into the sun for presiding over one of the more embarrassing franchise face-plants in all of American sports.

I mean what, exactly, did Marks learn about building a championship team from Gregg Popovich in San Antonio?

Kevin Durant during Game 4 of the Eastern Conference first round Playoffs against the Boston Celtics; now likely his final appearance for the Brooklyn Nets. Picture: Elsa/Getty Images

But as free as Durant is to pursue personal and professional happiness – “IM ME, I DO ME, AND I CHILL” KD announces to his 20 million Twitter followers – he also needs to be held accountable for his choices, just like Marks, Tsai, and Irving need to be held accountable for theirs. And by asking out of Brooklyn on Thursday, Durant made what was long suspected official:

He executed perhaps the worst trade in NBA history. That belongs on his resume right along with the two NBA Finals MVP awards, the one league MVP award and his rock-solid standing as an all-time great.

By exchanging Stephen Curry for Irving, Durant cost himself at least one championship ring, if not two or more down the road, and betrayed the vision he had six years ago in the Hamptons, where he hosted a Golden State delegation that had just eliminated his Thunder team in the playoffs. The Warriors convinced Durant that he would fit right in and turn their program into a dynasty. It would be a perfect marriage of selfless champs (2015) and a superstar in need of ring validation – as long as that superstar could ignore the noise about joining the stacked team that had just beaten his.

And man, that noise was intense, coming from all directions. Whether the residual effects of that criticism and the public dispute with Draymond Green conspired to send KD wandering off to a new adventure in 2019, and a chance to prove he could assemble his own winner, doesn’t much matter anymore.

Kevin Durant dribbles against Stephen Curry after leaving the Warriors for the Nets. Picture: Sarah Stier/Getty Images

All that matters now is this: Durant had a chance to spend the rest of his prime with Curry, the greatest shooter ever, a pro’s pro and the rare franchise player who was genuinely willing to assume the role of Robin to Durant’s Batman after playing Batman himself. Ditching that partner for Irving, who had ditched LeBron James (and the fabled Celtics), never seemed like a good idea. Three years and another Golden State title later, it seems like a worse idea than Brooklyn’s 2013 trade for Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce.

But Durant didn’t just make a Curry-for-Irving swap. He also traded Steve Kerr for Steve Nash (via Kenny Atkinson and Jacque Vaughn), Bob Myers for Marks, and a legitimate workplace culture of shared team-first values for a fake one that bounced from player empowerment to player enablement to whatever Marks decides it will be by lunchtime tomorrow.

Durant did everything he could to make it work on the court, and his one-man performance in the 2021 Milwaukee series was, well, basketball in its highest form. It was art. It shouldn’t be forgotten. It won’t be forgotten.

Maybe a healthy Irving and a healthy Harden would have helped Durant win it all last year. Maybe not. Unchallenged is the fact that a healthy Durant and Irving were swept in the first round this year by the Celtics and a former Nash assistant, Ime Udoka, yet another star the Nets let walk out the door.

Also unchallenged is the fact that Irving’s Irving-ness set up this epic fail, and forced his overmatched employers to make decisions that Durant didn’t like. So after Kyrie opted in, KD opted out. The New Jersey Nets were long defined by dysfunction and the comic relief they provided the rest of the league, at least until Jason Kidd showed up (though Kidd ultimately demanded a trade too). But Durant’s fastbreak from Brooklyn takes the organisational cake.

Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving: a failed superstar pairing for the Brooklyn Nets. Picture: Al Bello/Getty Images

It’s hard to believe Durant will double-down on his mistake and try to take Irving with him to wherever he lands. Either way, his partnership with the point guard already belongs to the ages.

Back in the day, Charlotte traded Kobe Bryant. Seattle traded Scottie Pippen. Milwaukee traded Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Philadelphia traded Wilt Chamberlain. St. Louis traded Bill Russell.

Kevin Durant matched them all by trading Steph Curry for a player who is the polar opposite of Steph Curry. And that deal will be a haunting part of his record forever.

– The New York Post

Originally published as Ian O’Connor: Kevin Durant’s trade away from Steph Curry will forever haunt his career