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Kevin Durant recently interviewed with ESPN's Nick Friedell. Friedell had spoken to Durant about some of the challenges he's faced with the Brooklyn Nets.
Durant asked for a trade in the offseason but didn't get his wish as it was tough for the Nets to get a trade partner. If Rudy Gobert required the type of package he did, there isn't a team in the world that could trade for Durant unless they were going to completely blow Brooklyn out of the water.
Nick Friedell believes Kevin Durant is the key to the Nets turning their season around and it would be tough to argue with him. He had the following to say on ESPN:
"I am like, he's feeling great and the reason why is despite all the speculation over the summer about where he may go and that he's getting out of Brooklyn. From the moment he sat Joe Tsai and Sean Marks back in August and committed fully to this team, everything else faded away. When he came into training camp, he believed completely that he was going to be part of the Nets and that this team could still win and he made a really intriguing point.
He told me that his situation isn't like the situations with James Harden and the Rockets and the Nets and Jimmy Butler with the Timberwolves and Anthony Davis when he was here in New Orleans with the Pelicans.
Nick sensed Durant's dedication to the Nets, which has been a key factor in Brooklyn's recent hot streak. He said:
Becuase Kevin thinks his situation was handled completely in the summer his teammates weren't being asked about it all of the time. It wasn't impacting the way they played the game. Their focus once he committed again and came to camp was let's win now and despite all the things that have gone on in the last couple of months, he has now proven that he's still at the top of, the top of the league and he can carry this team."
Kevin Durant is the reason for Brooklyn Nets' success
Brooklyn now finds itself as one of the top three teams in the Eastern Conference standings. They're neck and neck with the Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics. If Kevin can continue playing like this, there's a good chance that Brooklyn can win an NBA Championship.
Durant spoke about how he knows the Nets can still win a title when he came back in the summer:
"I don't even look at s--- that way. My whole thing was like -- are we, does the process matter to us? And that's one thing I did know that people here enjoy, grinding. So that was the most important thing for me. Titles and stuff come with the process in which you -- how you prepare. It was more so, "All right, are we going to practice harder? Are we going to pay more attention to detail?"
With the way Kyrie Irving and Kevin are playing, Brooklyn has to feel confident. If they can find a way to play basketball and ignore the outside noise as they have in the past few weeks, things will continue to look positive for them.
