Kevin Durant requested a trade from the Brooklyn Nets this past offseason, which they ultimately didn't accommodate. Durant spoke of the trade request and his return to the Nets this season despite his request the Nets part ways with Steve Nash. Nash and the Nets parted ways early in the season and Jacque Vaughn was elevated to head coach after they decided not to move forward with Ime Udoka.
"It wasn’t difficult at all to request a trade because it was about ball," Durant told Chris Haynes of B/R. "I went to them and was like, ‘Yo, I don't like how we are preparing. I don't like shootarounds. I like practices. I need more. I want to work on more s--t. Hold me accountable. Get on my ass in film if that's going to help you get on everybody else’s head. I want to do more closeouts. I want to work on more shell drills at practice.’
"This was the type of s--t I was coming at them with. It wasn't like, ‘Yo, y'all need to make sure everybody around me can make my life easier.’ Hell nah, I want to make everybody else’s life easier. Ask Steve Nash, you can go call him right now. I would say, ‘Yo, I need more closeout drills. We need to practice more.’ That's what I was on.
"I wasn’t feeling that, and nobody was on that same vibe with me. Jacque Vaughn is. I had some complaints in the summer, and my complaints were not about just me; it was about how we are moving as a unit. I want us to be respected out here in the basketball world. I don’t want players to look at us and say, ‘Oh man, these [expletive] are full of s--t. That’s not the type of team I want to be on.’ So when we’re all playing like s--t, you know the one person they’re going to look at. That’s why I requested a trade."
