No Golden reunion
Curry seems content with Warriors' roster, dimming Durant speculation
LAS VEGAS — Having the entire NBA assembled at the Las Vegas Summer League hasn’t appeared to kick-start the Nets’ trade talks for Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.
The chatter around a Durant return to the Warriors is dying down, with that potential reunion seeming more wistful than reality.
While first ESPN and then The Athletic posited there was mutual interest in the Warriors trading for Durant, reports by both ESPN and The Ringer have tamped down expectations.
And Stephen Curry, who won NBA Finals MVP three weeks ago in leading the Warriors to their fourth championship in eight seasons, addressed the Durant speculation without addressing the Nets star by name.
“The rumor mill and all that stuff is part of the nature of the NBA and league. You take it for what it is,” Curry told NBC Sports Bay Area on Friday. “You know how quickly things can change, but I like where we’re at.”
Curry was speaking at the American Century Championship golf tournament in South Lake Tahoe, Nev., and appeared perfectly comfortable with his championship team standing pat and neither gutting its depth nor mortgaging its future for Durant.
A Golden State deal for Durant would likely include not only a host of first-round draft picks and swaps but also (for salary matching purposes) Jonathan Kuminga, Jordan Poole, James Wiseman and Andrew Wiggins.
Poole averaged more than 25 points over the final few weeks of last season to carry Golden State when Curry was out, while Moses Moody poured in 34 points Friday night in a summer league game against the Knicks.
“There’s a lot of confidence in that,” Curry said of Golden State’s young talent. “There’s a lot of optimism, a lot of energy, about where we’re going.”
It’s well-chronicled that the Nets can’t trade for Wiggins, who is on a rookie extension, as long as Ben Simmons is on their roster. That’s because Simmons is on the same type of deal and a team can’t have two players on rookie extensions who are both acquired in a trade. It would necessitate either moving Simmons or constructing a three-team trade that would send Wiggins elsewhere for whatever assets they can get.
Those are the kind of talks Nets general manager Sean Marks and owner Joe Tsai will have with a host of other teams at the summer league, including Warriors GM Bob Myers and owner Joe Lacob.
But right now, any deal for Durant is just at the talking stage, and likely the not-too-serious kind.
➤ The Nets are still expected to look to trade Durant before Irving. That’s partly because the Lakers appear to be the only market for Irving and partly due to the possibility of having to take back Russell Westbrook’s huge contract. The Lakers have so far been unwilling to part with even a single first-round pick, according to freelance reporter Marc Stein.
LeBron James will become eligible for his contract extension Aug. 4, and that deadline could start to put pressure on the Lakers.