It was Kevin Durant’s trade request that officially ended the Nets’ window of contention two years ago. Durant has watched their delayed rebuild from afar and insists it’s heading in the right direction.
Brooklyn took a 108-84 loss to Durant’s Suns before 17,077 at Barclays Center — where he, Kyrie Irving and James Harden once formed a potent but ill-fated Big 3.
Durant asked out at the 2023 trade deadline, the last star out the door.
He returned with the Suns on Wednesday, recording 24 points and eight rebounds along with providing well-wishes and confidence that the Nets’ latest rebuild will bear fruit.
Brooklyn fans can only hope, after watching their team fall to 14-31.
Nic Claxton was the only full-time starter available — with Cam Johnson, Cam Thomas, D’Angelo Russell and Ben Simmons all hurt.
“Definitely, I want to see this franchise do well,” Durant said beforehand. “What is it, 12 or 13 picks that they’ve got? Assets, that’s the most important thing with a rebuilding group is the assets. The product on the floor, it might be inconsistent some games. They beat us early in the season and looked great, and then you lose to the Clippers by 40 or 50 and that might not look great.
“But when you look at the big picture, you’ve got young guys that are getting experience and playing time. You’re building assets and getting future picks. And hopefully you can draft well, put the team together well. So I think they’re walking in the right direction. I think the fans definitely want to see some great basketball on the floor, and I think it’s coming for this team.”
The Nets top the NBA in both salary cap space this summer (an estimated $65 million) and future first-round picks (15, four of them this June).
Most of that draft haul is either directly or indirectly from the Durant trade — eight unprotected firsts, another lightly protected first and a swap.
Durant famously spurned the Knicks to come to Brooklyn as a package deal with Irving in 2019.
They recruited Harden to form a Big 3 then lost in the 2021 second round when both Harden and Irving got hurt.
Irving missed two-thirds of the next season for refusing to adhere to the city’s COVID vaccine mandates, and Harden demanded a move at the trade deadline.
After Irving did the same at the next year’s deadline, Durant finally asked out.
The Big 3 was over after just 16 appearances together, undone by a host of factors.
“Injuries, COVID, us just not getting on the court,” Durant said. “Those two were the biggest factors. People would say our attitudes, three guys’ personalities didn’t mesh well. [There were] a lot of narratives going around about each individual player — me, James and Kyrie — about our mentality as men. But once we got on the court and once we actually played together, once you saw the culture we were building, it was something the fans could get behind.
“That first year when James got here halfway through the season was some of the most incredible basketball that I’ve seen, I played in. … The main thing was that we just didn’t get on the court together and a lot of injuries — injuries to me, James and Kyrie played a factor. Along with COVID — that whole thing just [caused] a lot of s–t.”
Claxton is one of the few Nets still left from those teams, and he had a double-double Wednesday (10 points, 12 boards).
Keon Johnson (20 points) and Jalen Wilson (15 points) were among those aforementioned young players.
But Brooklyn shot just 37.4 percent from the floor (34-for-91) and 19.4 percent from deep (7-for-36).
As the Suns — led by Devin Booker’s 32 — pursue Jimmy Butler, the Nets are positioning themselves in the lottery, in sixth place and 2 ¹/₂ games behind No. 2 Utah.
