The Brooklyn Nets received a gut punch on Thursday when superstar Kevin Durant officially requested a trade.

This news comes a year after Durant signed a four-year deal to stay with Brooklyn. That deal runs though the 2025-26 season. While Durant wants out, Brooklyn may try to play nice and try to get at least one year out of Durant, Kyrie Irving and Ben Simmons with the goal of competing for a championship and changing his mind.

Nets legend Richard Jefferson compared Durant’s trade request to Kobe Bryant’s with the Los Angeles Lakers. Ultimately, Bryant stayed and won titles. He believes Durant should stay in Brooklyn as Bryant did with the Lakers:

It reminds me of when Kobe Bryant asked for a trade…they was talking about, you know, he wanted to get traded and then there was a lot of conversation about Chicago. And then they were like, ‘Well, this is our asking price for Kobe Bryant in his prime’ and Chicago, they were going to take everything that they can and Kobe was like, ‘Nah, I’m good because if I go there, there’s not going to be anything to play with’. So it is a lot trickier. Kevin Durant, he could … might be better off, I’m just saying, he’d be better off staying in Brooklyn if he’s gonna go to a team with no other superstar, no potential All-Star, no other talent. I think it’s a lot more complicated than I think people understand because Kevin Durant’s not just leaving Brooklyn for a change of scenery, he’s leaving Brooklyn because he wants to go compete for a championship so you can’t take all the pieces, add Kevin Durant and be like, here you go, so it’s gonna get complicated.

Whatever the Nets decide, this is going to be a big issue looming over their 2022-23 season. This is tough coming after a tumultuous 2021-22 season where everything that could have possibly gone wrong for the Nets did. For their sake, they need to hope Durant has a change of heart.

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