Nba market, Durant to Portland? All about Lillard’s post

When Portland had to choose who to call with number 1 in the 2007 Draft, a sign appeared on one of the busiest streets in the city asking motorists to choose: one honk for Greg Oden, two for Kevin Durant, the only two options. top of that year. History has said that the choice of the Blazers, Oden, was a resounding mistake: the center who was to be the heir of Shaquille O’Neal played just 82 games in the NBA, tormented by too many injuries, while KD, who finished at 2 in Seattle, he became one of the best filmmakers ever. Fifteen years later, with Durant still a NBA benchmark, Portland may have found a way to remedy that mistake, at least according to its star Damian Lillard.

the strange couple

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A post on the star’s Instagram was enough to make the Blazers fans dream, back from the most difficult season of recent years, the first with Chauncey Billups on the bench. Dame in her stories posted a photo of her and Durant in the Blazers jersey. A photomontage, of course, but one that in addition to making Portland fans dream. The two played together at the Tokyo Olympics, where Dame was injured but played nonetheless and Durant was the best defender of the tournament that Team USA led by Gregg Popovich finished with the gold medal around his neck. That photomontage, immediately relaunched on social media by the center of the Blazers Jusuf Nurkic, however, contributes to throwing fuel on the fire of the most complicated situation on the market: that of Brooklyn and the stars Kyrie Irving and Durant.

the future of KD

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Durant is monitoring the tense situation between Irving and the Nets. Kyrie must decide by Tuesday whether to exercise the player option for 2022-23 or become a free agent. Player and club are back at loggerheads: Irving feels like a phenomenon and wants a contract at the highest salary; the Nets do not want to go beyond a two-year agreement since Kyrie has so far missed more games in his Nets adventure than he has played and lives in a sort of parallel world compared to the rest of the team. Brooklyn suspended it last year, when at the beginning of the season Irving refused to be vaccinated against Covid (not so much because no-vax, but to support the rights of those who lost the choice) by excluding himself from games at the Barclays Center, forbidden to those who had not been vaccinated. That choice had suggested to the Nets that Kyrie was not ready to put the team first, and it dominoes the farewell of James Harden, who Brooklyn has replaced with Ben Simmons. The Nets always believe that Durant, Irving and Simmons could be the backbone of a title team, but they don’t want to risk tying up with Kyrie and then suffering the tantrums. Except that Irving and KD chose Brooklyn together in 2019, and if the Nets put Kyrie out, half the NBA is convinced Durant would ask for the divestiture, despite being under contract until 2025-26 (at 42.9 million in 2022-23. ).

Dream

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Portland is one of many teams preparing for the eventuality of Durant being available on the market. Except that Lillard’s message, so loud and public (and bordering on tampering, if not beyond), applies to both Durant and the Blazers. Why Dame is another of the superstars at risk of long nose: throughout last season there was talk of his farewell to the Blazers, but in the end Lillard remained in the only franchise for which he has ever played in the NBA and Portland before the draft Jerami Grant took him. Durant would take the rebuilding of the Blazers to another level, because the couple with Lillard would be a dream and the title would become the only possible goal. Winning is the only thing Durant wants: in 2019 he left the Warriors because after two Finals MVP titles with Golden State he wanted one of him. He thought he could win it in Brooklyn, but injuries and other people’s decisions got in the way. If Irving gets knocked out, KD could look for another team to fulfill his dream of putting another ring on his finger. Lillard wants to make sure he remembers Portland with that post. He, passing under that road in 2007, would have given two honks …