Durant’s dad tried to make Net a Knick
Kevin Durant’s father met with the Knicks before the fateful 2019 free agency and unsuccessfully tried to convince his son to sign with James Dolan’s team, a new book details.
Durant was already set on joining Brooklyn when his father, Wayne Pratt, told him through text about a video conference call with Knicks executives Steve Mills and Scott Perry, according to excerpts from “Can’t Knock the Hustle,” a book on the Nets by author Matt Sullivan.
Durant was upset about the meddling, which was also a tampering violation by the Knicks, and “didn’t want his pops f--king with the plan,” the book stated.
Still, Pratt, a Knicks fan and “occasionally estranged” from his superstar son, pushed for Durant to change his mind about the Nets.
“The Knicks is Mecca,” Pratt texted, according to “Can’t Knock the Hustle.” “If you want to do it, do it big. If you want to be a New Yorker, be a Knick.”
Durant, of course, stuck with his Brooklyn decision and told his father it wasn’t to appease his buddy Kyrie Irving, according to the book.
The Knicks, as a result of Durant’s move to the outer borough for four years, $164 million, missed out on their top target and quickly shifted the narrative. Stories emerged that Dolan supposedly wasn’t interested in committing max money to a player coming off Achilles surgery.
The Knicks signed several lower tier players with their cap space — including Julius Randle — and released a statement acknowledging the fan’s disappointment.
Mills was fired as team president seven months later and the Knicks again pressed reset, with better results thus far under Tom Thibodeau and Leon Rose.
Durant has endured injuries and inactivity but returned to his top status in the playoffs. His 49-point triple-double in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals ranks among his greatest alltime postseason performances — perhaps the greatest — and provides Brooklyn a championship feel even with a hobbled Irving and James Harden.
In a podcast interview over the summer, Durant said he “never planned” on joining the Knicks and chose Brooklyn because it was more low-key than MSG.
“Around February (of 2019) I was thinking, ‘I didn’t want to be the savior of the Knicks or New York.’ I didn’t care about being the King of New York. That never really moved me,” Durant said. “I didn’t care about being on Broadway. I just want to play ball and go to the crib and chill. So I felt like that’s what Brooklyn embodied. And I wanted to live in New York. And I felt like Brooklyn is everything I’m about — chill, on the low, all-black everything, we’re quiet. Just focus on basketball. There’s no show when you come to our games. No Madison Square, no Mecca. All of that sh--. We’re just going to hoop and build something new in Brooklyn.”