Kevin Durant, Steve Nash explain what went wrong while with Nets
"I just signed that deal, you had just signed a deal, but I feel like we were secure, but everything else around us was going to (expletive), not in a bad way," Durant said to Nash during an recent episode of the "Mind The Game" podcast with Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James. Nash and James co-host the podcast, but Durant was brought on a guest to talk about various topics, including his time in Brooklyn.
"We got GMs going to other teams, we got coaches going to other teams, we got players forcing trades. We got Ben Simmons, his back (is messed up) like it was just so much stuff going on around us," Durant continued. "I feel like we were locked in on the same page and (we) understand we were trying to do something special here. I felt like your hands were tied a lot, because as a coach, you got to deal with so much."
Despite coming off an Achilles injury in the 2019 NBA Finals as a member of the Golden State Warriors, Durant came to the Nets in June 2019 via a sign-and-trade agreement because of the opportunity to play with guard Kyrie Irving. Heading into the 2020-21 season, Brooklyn hired Nash as head coach and the Nets looked poised to compete for a championship even prior to trading for guard James Harden.
The best that would be seen from the Big 3 era in Brooklyn was in the 2021 NBA playoffs when the Nets made it to the Eastern Conference Semi-finals before losing to the Milwaukee Bucks in seven games. Harden requested a trade midway through the 2021-22 campaign while Durant and Irving were traded midway through the 2022-23 season, after Nash was fired following a 2-5 start to the season.
"I didn't get to coach as much as I wanted to," Nash said in response to Durant talking about what was going on behind the scenes, such as Harden wanting out. Durant has already spoken about what happened in Brooklyn prior to this podcast, but it seems that he admitted that Nash was put in a tough position due to everything that was happening during one of the most exciting eras in Nets history.
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