Adam Silver on Kevin Durant: NBA Doesn't 'Like to See Players Requesting Trades'

Amid all the speculation about Kevin Durant's future, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver weighed in on the Brooklyn Nets star requesting a trade from the team.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Silver noted: "We don't like to see players requesting trades and we don't like to see it playing out the way it is."

He added that the league would speak to the National Basketball Players Association during the next round of collective bargaining to see if there are any potential solutions to make trade requests less frequent than they are right now.

Rich Kleiman, Durant's business partner, told ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski on June 30 that KD formally requested a trade.

Nets general manager Sean Marks agreed to work with Durant and Kleiman to find a deal, per Wojnarowski.

The past decade has seen a significant increase in the number of players, particularly superstars, trying to gain a greater control over which team they play for.

Current and former All-Stars such as Carmelo Anthony, Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving, Chris Paul, James Harden and Kawhi Leonard all formally requested a trade or put their teams in an untenable situation that essentially forced a trade.

In the wake of the Harden-Ben Simmons trade in February, Silver told ESPN's Mike Greenberg on Get Up (h/t RealGM) that "superstars moving isn't necessarily a bad thing because it allows bad situations to [resolve] in an orderly way, to change."

But Silver added there's a difference between players nearing the end of their contract or in free agency wanting a change compared to "players actively seeking to move while they're under contract. The data is clear on that; that's not good for the league."

Durant's situation falls into the latter category. He signed a four-year, $198 million extension with the Nets in August 2021 that hasn't even kicked in yet. The deal begins with the 2022-23 season and runs through 2025-26.

Harden was traded from the Nets to the Philadelphia 76ers with no guaranteed years left on his deal after the 2021-22 season. Simmons was in the second season of his five-year, $177.2 million deal with the Sixers at the time of the trade.

The current collective bargaining agreement between the NBA and NBPA runs through the 2023-24 season, but it includes a mutual opt-out after 2022-23.