Kevin Durant Trade Rumors: Joe Tsai to Meet with Nets Star This Week

Brooklyn Nets superstar Kevin Durant reportedly will meet with team governor Joe Tsai this week after requesting a trade that hasn't come to fruition yet this summer.

"What I'm hearing is that KD is going to meet with the owner this week," a league executive told Steve Bulpett of Heavy Sports. "He's going to go directly to the owner, Tsai, sometime this week. We'll see how that works."

NBA reporter Marc Stein reported that the Nets declined to comment when he asked them about that potential meeting.

Whether the potential meeting helps facilitate a Durant trade remains to be seen.

"I have no idea what's going to come of that meeting," the executive added. "There are some things that KD is unhappy about, and I'm not sure any of that gets fixed here. But maybe it does."

Another personnel executive told Bulpett that teams around the league haven't been thrilled that talks with the Nets have leaked to the media.

"I think there's some teams that aren't very happy that when they talk to Brooklyn it gets in the papers," he said. "That doesn't help. I've talked with a couple of teams that are not happy with the rumors that creep out of there through all this. It's not a good way to do business."

That Boston Celtics, for instance, found themselves at the center of rumors after there were reports that the teams had discussed Jaylen Brown as the centerpiece of a potential Durant trade. Bulpett speculated that the Nets may have leaked that information to sour the relationship between Brown and the Celtics.

"That's probably why they won’t get anything done and why they haven't had any conversations for a while,” a source told him. "I don't think they are going to get anything done with Boston."

There is, of course, the possibility that the Nets simply bring back Durant and Kyrie Irving this offseason, even at the risk of losing Irving for nothing next summer when he hits free agency.

That could lead to plenty of tensions in the building this season, though it's also Brooklyn's leverage in any KD trade talks, given that he's still under contract for another four seasons. If teams aren't willing to meet Brooklyn's price, they have the option to simply keep him.

It's a gambit—unhappy superstars don't generally lead to healthy team dynamics—but it's an option for these Nets. And it's the sort of thing one would expect Durant and Tsai to discuss as a possibility in their reported meeting this week.