Durant ‘up in the air’ on Barclays return

Former Net superstar back in Brooklyn on Wednesday

January 31, 2024 John Torenli, Sports Editor Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Kevin Durant will try to back down the Nets and Brooklyn fans Wednesday when he makes his return to Barclays Center with the Phoenix Suns. AP Photo by Matt York

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The summer of 2019 was supposed to be the beginning of something big here in Downtown Brooklyn.

Nets general manager Sean Marks got Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving to commit to bringing Flatbush Avenue its first championship parade since the Dodgers beat the hated Yankees in 1955.

Instead, three-plus seasons produced a single playoff series win — the same amount won by Brooklyn’s original star-studded roster featuring Brook Lopez, Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce.

“The people that follow the Brooklyn Nets, they understood what we went through and those little moments that we had and shared as a team that the fans rallied around,” Durant said ahead of his much-anticipated return to the Barclays Center hardwood Wednesday night.

“Hopefully, they can remember that stuff,” added Durant.

The two-time NBA Finals Most Valuable Player as a member of the Golden State Warriors came here to bring this franchise its first-ever title. But he and Irving were jettisoned to Phoenix and Dallas, respectively, last February.

This will be Durant’s first visit to the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush as a member of the Suns (27-20), who will ride into Brooklyn off Monday’s 118-105 victory in Miami.

Durant scored 20 points, handed out seven assists, grabbed eight rebounds and blocked a pair of shots against the Heat. He put up 27 points on 9-of-18 shooting in his first reunion with the Nets this year, but Brooklyn came away with a 116-112 triumph in Phoenix on Dec. 13.

A month and a half later, Durant admittedly isn’t sure what type of reception he’ll get from the Barclays faithful on Wednesday.

Will it be an appreciative applause for his years here?

Or will it be a chorus of boos for his lack of wanting to stay in our borough and making trade demands the summer before he was shipped off to Phoenix?

“It just depends on how the people wake up,” Durant told the Associated Press Tuesday. “A lot of people don’t know what to say or how to feel about me. It’s up in the air on what may happen.”

Durant was an All-Star throughout his tenure here, even after sitting out his initial season while recovering from a torn Achilles suffered in the 2019 NBA Finals with the Warriors.

He averaged nearly 30 points per game during the 2021-22 campaign, and that was after lifting the Nets to the precipice of the Eastern Conference finals before a devastating Game 7 overtime loss to Milwaukee at Barclays.

Once teammates, Kevin Durant and Ben Simmons (right) will be on opposing sides Wednesday night when the Suns visit the Nets in Downtown Brooklyn. AP Photo by Aaron Gash

Brooklyn was swept out of the first round by Boston in 2022 and Durant was gone by the time the Nets lost four in a row to Philadelphia last April while he and his new teammates fell to eventual NBA champion Denver in the Western Conference semifinals.

Now, Durant is focused on bringing the Suns their first championship alongside fellow superstar Devin Booker, who torched Brooklyn for 34 points and 12 rebounds in the teams’ initial meeting this season.

Durant, Booker and Bradley Beal have formed a title-hungry triumvirate in Arizona much like Durant, Irving and James Harden had a short-lived and ultimately fruitless run in Brooklyn until Harden was sent to the 76ers in February 2022.

A year later, Durant and Irving were gone as well.

How will Brooklyn fans, who have adopted forwards Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson, the two key players that came back in the trade with the Suns, react to Durant in a Phoenix jersey?

“I never know how people are going to react,” Durant ceded after posting that he didn’t deserve or need a video tribute in Brooklyn. “I don’t expect anything from anyone. I just want them to do whatever they do that’s going to allow them to have some fun that night.”

Whether he got the job done in Brooklyn or not, Durant enjoyed his tenure here as one of the greatest players ever to don a Nets uniform.

“I know people won’t believe it, but it was some fun, fun times,” Durant said. “We had some adversity, but getting to know other players who had to step up in those moments throughout that adversity was fun.

“They filled in for what we were missing and they did that at a phenomenal level and we all had fun in the process. Last season was some of the funnest basketball I ever played.”

Brooklynites will be hoping for a third straight win, something the Nets (19-27) haven’t managed since Dec. 2-8.

Ben Simmons came back from a 38-game absence to put up a near triple-double at Barclays Monday night as the Nets blew past the Utah Jazz, 147-114.

The enigmatic playmaker figures to be back on the floor Wednesday when Durant and the Suns try to celebrate the superstar’s return with a win of their own.

“Once he said he was ready to go, I had no qualms that he was going to be able to push the pace for us and get back to the high-energy, high-octane pace that he’s played with, with this group,” Nets coach Jacque Vaughn said of Simmons, who had been out of the lineup since Nov. 6.

Simmons’ comeback might elicit offers on the trade market as this year’s February deadline approaches. Or he might be a part of the Nets’ plan going forward as they chase another playoff appearance.

Durant and Irving departing together didn’t stop Brooklyn from grabbing the No. 6 seed last year, nor did it result in either winning another ring in their new environs.

Now Durant will be back here as an opposing player, and is eager to find out how he will be received by the organization and fan base.

Brooklyn shooting guard Cam Thomas isn’t buying into the notion that Durant won’t be honored at Barclays during Wednesday’s game.

“I think that they’ll give (him a video tribute). KD just be trolling,” Thomas jabbed.

“You know what he do. I’m sure they’ll give him one. He did a lot here, whether people say he didn’t; he did a lot for New York. He just be trolling. Don’t listen to Kevin.”

After helping the Nets soar past Utah in Brooklyn Monday, Cam Thomas hopes to spoil Kevin Durant’s return to Barclays Center with the Suns. AP Photo by Mary Altaffer

It’s Durant who will likely be listening to the reaction of Brooklyn fans when he takes the floor and every time he possesses the ball Wednesday night.

Tip-off is at 8:30 p.m. and the game will be televised by ABC.