Brooklyn Nets Owner Shows Moxie In Response To Kevin Durant Trade Saga

The offseason standoff between Kevin Durant and the Brooklyn Nets continues to get more interesting after the player doubled down on his trade request.

Shams Charania of The Athletic reported that Durant told owner Joe Tsai that "he does not have faith in the Nets' direction" and made an ultimatum to either keep him or fire both general manager Sean Marks and head coach Steve Nash.

It is a massive ask from Durant since there is seemingly no way for Tsai to agree with the player in firing both men.

Tsai then took to Twitter to clarify his stance on the matter.

"Our front office and coaching staff have my support. We will make decisions in the best interest of the Brooklyn Nets," he wrote.

The seemingly irreparable and unending rift between Durant and the Nets has persisted to grow bigger a full month and a few days since he made his intentions of wanting out of Brooklyn was made public in late June.

All 29 other NBA teams have been closely monitoring the Durant situation to see whether the Nets will reconsider their asking price for the two-time NBA champion.

According to Charania, the teams most likely to make a trade for the versatile scoring forward are the Boston Celtics, Toronto Raptors and Miami Heat.

"Tsai and the Nets have made clear privately that they will take every last asset from a team that trades for Durant, sources said," the NBA insider later added.

With how things stand, it looks like there is a big chance that Durant will hold out from the Nets' training camp and further blur the lines between coming back and completely wanting out.

It is worth noting that Durant had signed a four-year, $198 million extension last year, and the 2022-23 season will serve as the start of that deal.

Durant has limited options at this point because teams interested in him would understandably not want to gut their roster of talent that the player would obviously want to play with.

Tsai is taking a massive, but understandable, gamble in his response to the news since the Durant and Kyrie Irving partnership is the crown jewel of their core.

Without the pair, the Nets are going to be treading water in the middle of the pack of the Eastern Conference and might even miss the playoffs entirely.

As the new season is set to begin sometime in mid to late October, it would not be farfetched to think that the Durant saga will continue to be at the top of NBA headlines.