Kyrie Irving: Partnership with Kevin Durant ‘just didn’t work out’
The Brooklyn Nets, organization and fans alike, had high hopes when Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant signed with the team going into the 2019-2020 season. In the season before that, the Nets made the playoffs with a 42-40 record under then-coach Kenny Atkinson.
However, at that time, the team’s best player was arguably D’Angelo Russell so the team’s ceiling was only so high. Durant and Irving joining the team was a sign of things to come. Unfortunately, those things did not come to fruition as the most the team did under the guidance of Durant and Irving was three playoff appearances with only one of those playoff runs going past the first round.
With the drama that has followed both superstars, it eventually came to a point where the organization stopped trusting Irving and he responded by asking for a trade that came to pass on Monday. With Irving now a Dallas Maverick, he spoke during his introductory press conference about what happened between him and Durant:
“We just had goals together, and it wasn’t just as a duo. We were seeing ourselves as savants in the culture that we wanted to teach the young’uns, and if we got some young guys that were willing to sacrifice and buy into what we got going on, then we were gonna flourish, we felt. But it just didn’t work out. We still remain brothers, but it is a business at the end of the day as we always say, and I’ve got to look out for my family. And ultimately, I want to be at peace every time I come into work, rather than things hanging over my head or wondering what people think about me in the building or whether or not a report’s gonna come out tomorrow that I don’t talk to my teammates, which is untrue.”
Kyrie on how KD feels about him leaving: pic.twitter.com/7upUYEQqdv
— Ohm Youngmisuk (@NotoriousOHM) February 7, 2023
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