Before Kevin Durant trade request, Nets owner Joseph Tsai already had reason to

Kyrie Irving’s decision this week to opt into the final year of his deal in Brooklyn did not soothe Kevin Durant’s wandering mind.

Durant asked to be traded on the opening day of NBA free agency, even though Irving took the $37 million sitting in front of him without any trade stipulations attached. The Nets are under no obligation to trade Durant — he has four years and $198 million left on his contract. But it would be no surprise now to see him and Irving both traded before the start of training camp.

Nets owner Joseph Tsai had already reached his limit, multiple sources told The Athletic, after years of injuries, off-court embarrassments and playoff failures were followed by threats leaked by Irving and Durant during Brooklyn’s contract negotiations with Irving.

Tsai, 58, co-founder of Alibaba Group, China’s largest commerce retailer, was born in Taiwan, went to high school in New Jersey, has two degrees and four varsity letters (lacrosse) from Yale and is worth $9 billion, according to Forbes.

As an owner, he stays out of his basketball operations staff’s way, for the most part, giving his blessing on the most important decisions, and would otherwise understand/support/not be averse to the general trend of player empowerment in the modern NBA.

Tsai would understand that, under normal circumstances, stars at the level of Durant and Irving can force trades one year after signing max extensions (Durant) or try to negotiate another max contract (Irving) publicly if that’s what it comes to. Tsai has sat at a bargaining table or two in his career.

In this particular set of circumstances surrounding Durant, Irving and the Nets, things got more complicated than planned. Brooklyn spent three full seasons paying the luxury tax, failed to get out of the second round of the playoffs, fired a popular coach, traded away a lot of assets to bring in another star in James Harden and then was forced to trade him because he had lost all faith in Irving’s commitment to winning. That led to acquiring a player on a max contract who was physically and mentally unable to play at all last season (Ben Simmons), all while neither Irving nor Durant came close to playing in half of the Nets’ games. Add in Irving’s refusal to get the COVID-19 vaccine and the team cohesiveness that affected last season, and it’s no wonder Tsai has reached his limit.

Here’s a look at how Tsai came to the point where both could be traded.

In the summer of 2019, the Nets pulled a major coup by attracting both star free agents. It was a package deal. Irving signed a four-year, $137 million contract, ending his two tumultuous seasons in Boston. Durant came aboard via a sign-and-trade for four years and $165 million, even though he’d torn his Achilles the previous NBA Finals with the Warriors and would miss the entire 2019-20 season. It was a risk any team would take on two championship-winning, gold-medal-winning players who are as gifted as just about anyone else in the NBA at their respective positions.

In Year 1, with Durant out, Irving started strong but suffered a shoulder injury. As The Athletic detailed in a previous story about Irving, he sought so…