It’s starting to feel like Woj is the guy who regurgitates whatever the Nets’ front office wants him to say:

While Kevin Durant requested a trade last week and the Brooklyn Nets have been amenable to dealing him away, talks have been slow to materialize. The Nets are having a difficult time finding a trade to their liking in a one-on-one scenario, which leads them exploring more complicated multi-team proposals.

There is an expectation that Brooklyn’s trade talks on Durant could be helped by Sean Marks having the opportunity to meet face-to-face with his rival decision makers at Summer League in Las Vegas.

Even still, there is still a possibility of Durant not being traded by the Nets before the start of the season.

“Absolutely,” said Adrian Wojnarowski when asked if there is a path that eventually leads to Durant remaining with the Nets. “Especially if this drags out and there’s not a deal found in the next month and goes into August and you get closer to training camp. Brooklyn, they don’t have to take a deal they don’t want to do. They don’t have to talk themselves into a deal.

“At the same time, as Kevin Durant looks at the situation, can he look at it differently over time? That’s certainly a possibility.”

Wojnarowski goes on to suggest the possibility of Durant and the Nets having a better line of communication and also that his trade option is less desirable to him than remaining with the franchise. 

“I don’t think anybody’s counting on it. I think all sides are proceeding as though Kevin Durant will be traded at some point.”

As I see it, this is a pretty transparent attempt by the Nets–through Woj–to send a message to their potential trade partners: you better come through with some better offers, because we might just keep KD! We might just decide not to trade him! Better hurry!

It’s like those commercials: “ACT NOW! THIS DEAL WON’T BE AROUND FOR LONG!”

I could be wrong, but I feel like KD is a guy who has too much pride to change his mind.

That’s why I think he’s not going back to Golden State: he has way too much pride to come crawling back to Steph, Draymond and Klay.

What’s happening here is that the Nets are unhappy with the trade offers they’re getting for KD. That’s all. KD doesn’t care about that. He doesn’t care what the Nets get back in return for him.

He just wants to go to a really good team with multiple All Stars like Phoenix or Miami so he can win a Championship with as little adversity as possible.

Be careful when it comes to which news headlines you believe. If something is leaked out, it was leaked out for a reason. There’s always an angle or an ulterior motive behind every “BREAKING NEWS” headline regarding free agency and trade rumors.

A lot of the time, these ace reporters are just being used by teams to peddle narratives and increase their leverage in negotiations.

Like when there were rumors about how teams like the 76ers and the Mavericks were interested in Kyrie Irving: that was nonsense. The Lakers are, have been, and remain the only team out there with real interest in trading for Kyrie Irving.

But I’m sure the Nets are trying to increase their trade leverage with the Lakers, so they put out the rumor that there are other teams interested in trading for Kyrie, which they hope will make the Lakers more desperate and more willing to pay a higher price for Kyrie.

It’s all negotiation tactics and maneuvering.