Kevin Durant May Use 'Extreme Tactics' To Get Traded After All

The seemingly never-ending saga between Kevin Durant and the Brooklyn Nets has been a major storyline that NBA fans have been closely monitoring since late July.

As the Nets continue to wait out the storm while asking for a titanic haul in return for Durant, a league insider revealed that the situation in Brooklyn, particularly on the player's side, is going to be more extreme than expected.

Marc Stein posted on his Substack that Durant is closer to calling it a career rather than playing another game in a Nets jersey.

"During summer league in Las Vegas, one of the most well-connected team executives I speak to regularly insisted to me that, based on what he was hearing, Kevin Durant was more apt to retire than play again for the Brooklyn Nets. This was in early July," Stein wrote.

"I told the tipster that I simply couldn't believe that. I was a loyal subscriber to the theory that Durant The Hooper loves playing basketball way too much to adopt such a stance."

Durant has mostly stayed away from the spotlight since requesting a trade and is willing to let things play out, but for him to retire seems a little bit too much even for him.

This was confirmed by Durant later in a tweet, saying that people will want to believe what they want to believe, but him retiring "is comical at this point."

Stein later added that the Nets' Media Day will take place on September 26, a day ahead of their first practice for the season and it is growing likely that Durant will refuse to report to training camp entirely.

"If Durant hasn't been traded by then, there is a growing expectation in league circles that he will continue trying to cause as much of a ruckus behind the scenes to try to prod the Nets into lowering their asking price at last to facilitate a deal."

The above statement makes a lot more sense for a competitor like Durant at this point in his career as he continues to search for that elusive third NBA title.

On the talk of going to extreme lengths to get traded, Durant was jokingly told by Andrew Bogut to post a highly-sensitive tweet about Hong Kong's political relations with China in order to force Nets owner Joe Tsai to trade him.

The Taiwanese-born Canadian businessman has deep ties with China as the co-founder of business-to-business platform Alibaba, in which he also serves as the executive vice chairman.

Getting underneath Tsai's skin, Bogut believes in jest, is Durant's ace in the hole if he really wants to be traded.

The Durant saga is not expected to let up anytime soon and predicting the outcome of it all is almost next to impossible.