In his mission to bring the Nets a champion, Kevin Durant is beginning the season 0-1

Kevin Durant lost.

That’s the takeaway from the declaration Tuesday from the Brooklyn Nets revealing that the company and its unhappy super star “have agreed to move forward with our partnership” after a conference at Los Angeles in between the 2 sides.

This is the collaboration that simply a couple of weeks ago Durant required be liquified so that he might be sent out to the group of his picking. It was a conference that included the owner, Joe Tsai, and the 2 males Durant had required be fired if he were to remain — head coach Steve Nash and basic supervisor Sean Marks.

Now?

Now the potential divorcees declare they “are focusing on basketball, with one collective goal in mind: build a lasting franchise to bring a championship to Brooklyn.” 

That’s a spectacular comedown for Durant, and a seismic shift from the typical course of things when NBA super stars make needs, no matter how improbable they appear at the time. 

Perhaps 2 of the most glaring examples of gamer power run amok were near and dear sufficient to the Nets that they’d lastly had enough — on their own and, maybe now, in a shift of power in the NBA at big. First it was James Harden desiring out of Houston, and after that, paradoxically, out of Brooklyn, ultimately landing in Philly. And, second of all however linked, it was Ben Simmons declining to bet the Sixers and heading to Brooklyn, where … he still hasn’t played a single minute of basketball. 

Both gamers got what they desired. So has almost every other super star when dissatisfied — a list at one time or another that has actually consisted of Anthony Davis, Chris Paul, Jimmy Butler, Kawhi Leonard and others.

Now there’s a precedent for groups who wish to battle back a few of the advantage, a relocation enabled mainly by the ham-fisted method K.D. set about things. Power is a powerful weapon when wielded sensibly, for if you do not understand how to handle it you can discover it all of a sudden in another person’s hands.

Back when this mess initially unfolded in July with Durant’s very first now-failed warning, we argued that the Nets, for a range of factors, ought to merely inform him no. That’s as real now as it was then, however Durant sure made it simple for Brooklyn to do.

This is a first-rate gamer with 4 years left on his agreement, one who was constantly much less most likely than Simmons to miss out on time since, as anybody in the NBA will inform you, Durant enjoys to hoop. It’s an enthusiasm, a good and crucial part of his all-time achievement, and he was never ever most likely to voluntarily miss out on time from the video game he enjoys.

That was the very first point in the Nets favor. It likewise assisted that the Kyrie Irving ordeal indicated the Nets would constantly aim to fix the Durant circumstance initially and — as crucial — require a large go back to dismantle a group with the lofty expectations that featured a Durant-Kyrie pairing. 

This wasn’t some team with an only super star and no genuine champion course forward, just like, state, the Denver Nuggets group Carmelo Anthony required his escape of a years back. The Nets were a competitor, a minimum of on paper, which indicated Marks needed to get the best go back to conserve his own task.

Sometimes, when you have no option, you have an odd sort of flexibility. That’s the area the Nets GM discovered himself in.

All of this was lost on Durant when he unwisely went to London and informed Tsai that the owner needed to select in between him and Nash and Marks. Here’s an excellent guideline to live by: Don’t attempt to strong arm billionaires. 

Then, still stopping working to check out the circumstance precisely, Durant or those around him plainly dripped the warning, attempting to put pressure on Tsai to flex to his will. A 2nd guideline to live by, carefully connected to the very first: Don’t then attempt to push those billionaires openly after the personal strong-arm technique stops working.

Now, it holds true both sides still get something out of this besides the pretend we’re-all-in-this-together farce they’re attempting to offer. While Durant might still be a Net this season, that’s not a lock, and each side can win something from the other in this plan.

This declaration is a best method for Brooklyn to inform the Grizzlies, Celtics, Suns, Heat, and any other prospective suitor who were imagining a K.D. acquisition, that the cost is the cost. Brooklyn has actually leveraged those groups openly, and highly, with the very best tool at getting the offer for Durant they desire — the risk he’ll remain.

That, Durant & Co., is how you do it.

And Durant gets something too. He gets to hoop. He gets to prepare for an NBA season, probably with the Nets however perhaps still somewhere else, with a (less) sidetracking training school and a clear concentrate on basketball being the secrets to having a strong start. He enjoys the video game, and he gets to keep playing it, which’s something.

But do not let the news odd the truth that Durant lost the really public battle he began in the most public of methods. 

The coach he required be fired will still be his coach. The GM he required be fired is still in charge. The group he declined to be part of, in the meantime, still keeps his services. And the group owner he sought to muscle revealed him simply what cut-throat strength appears like.