For all we know, Kevin Durant will be returning to the Brooklyn Nets this season despite demanding a trade earlier in the offseason. KD and the front office have come to an agreement after they couldn’t find a suitable trade package to send him elsewhere.
In a fascinating profile written by Rolling Stone’s Matt Sullivan, published Monday, Steph Curry said that the Warriors kicked the tires on the idea of bringing back Durant. Sullivan relayed Curry's comments from August, in the midst of the Nets-KD drama.
“There was a conversation internally amongst us about ‘If he was available, would you?’” Curry told Sullivan. “Every team has those conversations, and obviously in our situation, they’re gonna call me and ask me, ‘How do you feel about it?’ I was never hesitant. The idea of playing with KD and knowing who he is as a person, from our history in those three years, I think KD’s a really good dude. I think he is misunderstood. I think he has had certain things happen in his life that hurt his ability to trust people around him, in a sense of making him feel safe at all times. So all of those things, I understand, having played with him and gotten to know him. I love that dude.”
Durant, of course, joined the Warriors after his Oklahoma City Thunder were knocked out of the epic 2016 Western Conference Finals in seven games. Golden State would become a super team, winning two titles in three Finals trips with Durant and Curry wrecking shop.
Steph clearly has fond memories about playing with KD, but realizes that bringing him back would probably require blowing up the defending champs. You have to figure that a combination of stars Andrew Wiggins or Jordan Poole, along with youngsters Jonathan Kuminga, Moses Moody or James Wiseman would be required to lure Durant.
“And if you said, ‘Oh, KD’s coming back, and we’re gonna play with him,’ I had so much fun playing with him those three years, I’d be like, ‘Hell, yeah!’” Curry told Sullivan. “Then you have to think: What does that actually mean? What does it look like? You tell me I’m playing with [current Warriors teammates Andrew Wiggins, Jordan Poole, and Draymond Green], I’m like, ‘Hell, yeah!’ There’s all types of emotion and things that happen to the league. And if anybody’s saying that you wouldn’t entertain that conversation — no disrespect to anybody on our team — but you don’t know how things work. But you also understand, like, if we run this thing back, I’ve got complete confidence in my team that we can win it again, as constructed.
“So, all those things were true. And it started with me wanting to play with KD at the beginning. Yeah, it’s about winning, it’s about having fun, playing the game of basketball. And that was part of the reaction of, like, ‘Yeah, it’d be amazing.’ What does that actually mean?”
The Warriors wouldn’t have been doing their homework if they didn’t at least think about bringing KD back. Given Durant’s recent history of trying to blow up the Nets, it’s probably a safer bet the Warriors kept the band together.
That special three-year run will never be taken away from Dub Nation and basketball fans, but we’ll have to think about ‘What if?’ when it comes to a reunion.