Kevin Durant has requested a trade. What’s next for the Brooklyn Nets?

Kevin Durant is about to shake up the Eastern Conference. The only question is the amplitude on the Richter Scale. Would the Nets trade Durant within the Eastern Conference and bequeath their SuperTeam dreams to a conference rival like the Heat? Or is Durant destined to land out West in Phoenix, another of his preferred destinations?

At this point, the Nets have little choice but to take the best available offer. When Brooklyn traded the rights to four consecutive first-round picks between 2024-27 to Houston in exchange for James Harden, it was valuing those picks as if it would be a perennial Finals contender through at least 2026, the final year of Durant’s contract. In other words, the Nets expected to be drafting in the bottom third of the first round. Two of those four picks took the form of swap rights, meaning the Nets and Rockets would exchange picks based on whose was better. Swapping away a pick in the 20s doesn’t cost a team much in the way of value. Swapping away a pick in the top 10, though? That hurts.

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In other words, the Nets are not in a position to tear it all down and rebuild. Although the 2023 first-round pick that they just traded for Royce O’Neal will presumably come with some protections should the Nets end up in the lottery, they are out of luck after that. They need to find a way to trade Durant and remain a playoff team. And if the best way to do that is to deal within the conference, so be it.

That’s an important point, given that the Heat have the ability to put together an offer that few other teams can match. Assuming the Suns would not consider trading young superstar Devin Booker for Durant, they could offer a package built around Mikal Bridges, but Brooklyn would need a heck of a lot more than a three-and-D wing to put itself on solid footing for the next three to five years. A sign-and-trade deal for DeAndre Ayton could be another piece, but how much value does that really add when you consider that the Nets would also have to outbid the rest of the marketplace for Ayton? The Suns have a good young rotation piece in fourth-year forward Cameron Johnson, the No. 11 overall pick in 2019 who shot 42.5% from three-point range this season. But are Bridges, Johnson, and perhaps Ayton plus some form of draft compensation really enough for one of the Top 5-10 players in NBA history?

That depends on how Brooklyn feels about Ayton. More so, it depends on whether the Nets view Kyrie Irving as a part of the plan. You can certainly talk yourself into a starting five of Irving, Seth Curry, Bridges, Ayton, and either Ben Simmons or Cameron Johnson. But Irving and Simmons are both well past the point of being able to rely on for even the short-term future.

The Heat? They could offer star center Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro, though such a package would be contingent on trading away Simmons, due to an NBA rule that forbids both he and Adebayo from sharing the same roster, given that they would both be trade acquisitions signed to a Designated Player Exception contract. The Heat could sweeten the deal with a quality depth piece like Max Strus or Gabe Vincent. Sure, they’d have to figure out the center position, but there are all kinds of ways to build a team around a duo like Jimmy Butler and Kevin Durant.

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As for the Sixers, you’d have to expect Daryl Morey to at least place a phone call and let it be known that he could find a spot for Durant. But that seems like a long shot, even if the Nets view Tyrese Maxey as a potential superstar and Tobias Harris as a viable piece. Nothing that we’ve seen over the last five to 10 years suggests that a player like Durant would consider a place like Philadelphia, particularly given the way his partnership with James Harden ended in Brooklyn.

That being said, there will be a lot of money and a lot of talent and, potentially, a lot of teams in play as the Nets look for a suitable return for Durant. So the Sixers could get involved in some leg of the transaction.

Durant would make a lot of sense in Boston, which could offer Jaylen Brown and Robert Williams, a duo that would trump Miami’s best offer. But this is the NBA, and if Durant doesn’t want to play in Boston, it doesn’t really matter what Boston can offer. Otherwise, it wouldn’t matter in the first place that he doesn’t want to play with the Nets.