Nets Notes: Durant, Collins, Outlook, Nash

A number of rival NBA executives subscribe to the theory that the Rudy Gobert trade made it more difficult for the Nets to move Kevin Durant, according to Michael Scotto of HoopsHype. As Scotto explains, there was a sense that if the Nets couldn’t get more in exchange for Durant than the Jazz got for Gobert, Brooklyn’s front office would’ve looked “foolish.”

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Within his story on the Nets and Durant, Scotto also reports that multiple members of Brooklyn’s front office are fans of Hawks big man John Collins. A report earlier this week stated that Atlanta offered Collins, De’Andre Hunter, and a draft pick in exchange for Durant. However, Collins wasn’t viewed as the sort of star who could headline a KD package, Scotto says.

Here’s more on the Nets in the wake of this week’s Durant-related developments:

• Multiple general managers who spoke to Scotto predicted that the Nets will be a top-four team in the East this season, though one acknowledged that there’s a wide range of conceivable outcomes for the club. “There’s a very predictable unpredictability, a predictable chaos, a predictable waffling,” the GM said. “What really would surprise you at this point?”
• While Brooklyn’s high asking price was one major reason why Durant is still a Net, one league executive who spoke to Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today suggested that suitors may have been turned off by the aggressive way the star forward pushed for a trade. “Teams don’t want to overpay for someone who has proven he will burn your house down,” the exec said.
• During a segment on ESPN’s Get Up (video link), Brian Windhorst referred to the truce between Durant and the Nets as a “tentative” one, while Adrian Wojnarowksi said that things will “continue to be fragile” in Brooklyn going forward. Sam Amick of The Athletic agrees that it would be naive to consider the Durant saga over, given that “this kind of discontent doesn’t just disappear overnight.”
• Brian Lewis of The New York Post and Alex Schiffer of The Athletic each list five questions facing the Nets now that they’ve decided to hang onto Durant.
• Within his story at The Athletic, Schiffer says that a possible new look in 2022/23 from head coach Steve Nash – who has several new assistants on his staff – has been a “selling point” in Brooklyn during free agency. Schiffer suggests that the Nets have the personnel necessary to run a faster-paced offense this season after leaning on an isolation-heavy system during Nash’s first couple years in Brooklyn.