Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving–who Boston Celtics fans may remember as the C’s minor first-round roadblock that kept all four games of their first-round postseason series close but succumbed in a four-game sweep–have held up the entire NBA offseason with their trade demands.
Irving has a desire to reunite with LeBron James with the Los Angeles Lakers this offseason while Kevin Durant has an interest in joining the Phoenix Suns or the Miami Heat, but the Brooklyn Nets are not beholden to accept just any deal for either superstar. So far, their desire to get the most out of a Durant swap has slowed the offseason to a grinding halt as teams in the Durant sweepstakes wait to see if they have to figure out a backup plan should they not land the 2x former NBA Finals MVP. As for Irving, Sean Marks’ reluctance to take back Russell Westbrook in any swap is holding up Le-GM from getting his point guard of choice.
ESPN’s Brian Windhorst floated the possibility of the Lakers putting together a package, presumably including Anthony Davis and Westbrook, that would keep the Durant-Irving pairing together, but there are better returns out there than Westbrook, draft picks that won’t convey for half a decade, and an aging AD — whose shooting has fallen off a cliff since winning a bubble ring down in Disney World during the pandemic’s darkest days.
One such arrangement would be courtesy of the New York Knicks, who the Durant-Irving duo famously spurned in the summer of 2019. That rejection was the ultimate wake-up call for fans of the Madison Square Garden home team; free agents don’t care about playing for the “World’s Most Famous Arena” crowd as much as they care about playing on a franchise that would lead them to substantial on-court success at the NBA’s highest level. Still, despite the rejection three years ago, Knicks fans wouldn’t turn down the chance to make the pairing happen in orange and blue right now.
While New York just signed Jalen Brunson to a free agent deal this summer worth over $100 million, having two players at the level of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving play for your team is something that doesn’t come around often. For New York, it hasn’t come around in several decades. Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire does not come close to counting.
With the chance to pair KD, Irving, Brunson, and Mitchell Robinson, the New York Knicks have both the core to accommodate the duo and the pieces to appease the Nets. The best part? They have an asset to benefit the Boston Celtics too.
Here’s a 3-team trade involving the Boston Celtics that lands Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving on the Knicks
The Boston Celtics could sneak Seth Curry into this massive three-team deal that gives New York Knicks fans what they’ve been craving since Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and Zion Williamson all ended up elsewhere in the summer of 2019. It’d take a future first-rounder and second-rounder, but Curry fits too well not to balk at this price. Considering the Knicks are giving up their entire team outside of Brunson and Robinson, it’s the least Boston could do on its end to facilitate the Nets trading away their two franchise pillars.
Brooklyn cannot get a better return elsewhere. New York would have a core of Durant-Irving-Brunson-Robinson that covers all bases and keeps the team competitive now and in the future. The Boston Celtics get a perfect complement to the ‘Jays’ and the rest of their loaded rotation that has grown significantly stronger since free agency began.
Who says no?