J Stew’s phone on Jaylen Brown-Kevin Durant rumors
With rumors of the Celtics and Nets being “engaged” in trade talks with Jaylen Brown and Kevin Durant as the main players, we check in with J Stew’s phone on what NBA gossip he’s hearing.
Transcript
Brian Scalabrine: If there’s traction and Kevin Durant goes to management, there is no better team out there than the Boston Celtics. If you’re the Brooklyn Nets to make this move. Isn’t That crazy? Because like the Celtics are I mean, you don’t think of a championship team as having the assets to go get a bona fide star. And yet here the Celtics are where they have constructed a roster and manage their picks to a situation where they can’t do that. So just playing devil’s advocate, though, the whole conversation this season was not separating Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Now I know is Kevin Durant, so I know is Dharamshala like I know that that is a difference maker but scal do you think that they would do that where they would take Jaylen Brown but the Celtics that they would put him out there to get a Kevin Durant okay. It’s. Darantula.
Felger: So Brian Scalabrine obviously knew something. He knew what was what he knew Durant was going to the Nets. He knew the Celtics would offer Jaylen Brown. He knew it all. So what else did everybody else know? What does Jimmy Stewart know? Jimmy Stewart’s phone still. What does your phone got at this hour?
J Stew: Oh, the Celtics never actually made an offer for Kevin Durant. Kevin Durant doesn’t want to be in Boston. Kyrie Irving is chirping him. Chirping Kevin Durant. Jayson Tatum doesn’t want to play with Kevin Durant.
Felger: Boy, that’s a lot. So, wait, you mean we have to go back and unpack?
Mazz: Cause I love the Kyrie chirping Durant part. Yeah.
Felger: Okay. Yeah. So fine. Start there. What does Kyrie. What do you mean, Kyrie? Irving’s chirping Durant. What does that mean?
J Stew: Kyrie Irving is making sure that Kevin Durant goes where Kyrie Irving wants Kevin Durant to go. They have a they have a rather close relationship with each other.
Felger: So where does Kyrie Irving want Durant to go?
J Stew: That’s a great question. I don’t have the answer to.
Mazz: Kyrie wants to control the situation, which makes sense because Kyrie’s a Denk. Yeah.
Felger: He’s some sort of power broker.
Mazz: Right, exactly. Yeah. Again, remember, he’s he’s part GM there, part owner of the team, as we all know. Just ask.
J Stew: It wouldn’t shock me if the leak of this story to both Woj and to Shams was Kyrie Irving.
Felger: Okay. And so but also then maybe what you’re implying there is Kyrie Irving does not want to ship Durant to Boston.
J Stew: Correct.
Felger: He doesn’t want he doesn’t want the Celtics to get Kevin Durant out of all this.
Murray: And also to help splinter what’s been built here with with the Celtics.
Felger: Oh yeah. He hates Boston. Hates Boston, hates the Celtics.
Murray: He’s got that photo with Kanye and Jaylen Brown last week. Oh, I would believe that.
Mazz: Oh, I would totally believe that. Kyrie would, you know, somehow get it stick his nose in there to try to make everybody look bad because that’s what Kyrie is.
Mazz: So you don’t think the Celtics ever made an offer or your phone says no offer was ever made?
J Stew: I believe that there was no actual offer of Jaylen Brown to the Nets for Kevin Durant ever made.
Mazz: Yes, so. Look, I wouldn’t. I don’t think we can eliminate Brooklyn being involved in this in some way, whether it’s and again, we can say that’s Kyrie. We can say that’s different. We can say it’s the organization. Brook Duran has asked for a trade. Brooklyn hasn’t been able to find a partner. And what better way to try to get people to up their offers than to say, this is what we have from Boston. And, you know, so if you’re serious, let us know. We’ll move.
J Stew: It wouldn’t surprise me if the real story is Brad Stevens called up the Nets and said, what would it take to get Kevin Durant to Boston? And the Nets said Jaylen Brown and Brad Stevens did this. (dial tone)
Mazz: I mean, it’s look, it’s it’s this a non-starter for a lot of teams, right? Like Phenix, Devin Booker. No, the Suns aren’t doing it. End of story. It’s no, it doesn’t make sense for us to make that deal. The variable here is obviously whether or not Brown and the team are on the same page. His contract is up in a couple of years. And I know that that you say, well, it’s two years from now, fine, no problem. But Kevin Durant wants out. He’s got four years. And so if you’re the Celtics and you know that resigning Brown is a problem, you got to look at it.
Felger: Jimmy, why does Jayson Tatum not want to play with Kevin Durant?
J Stew: Because this is now Jayson Tatum’s team. And I tend to believe that if you have Durant and Tatum on the same team, it becomes Kevin Durant’s team. And so I think that would be a problem.
Mazz: I agree with Jimmy. I felt this one when we first started talking about.
Felger: I don’t know if it’s a perfect fit.
Mazz: Yeah, I don’t know that it is either on a lot of levels. One again, you then put someone in front of Tatum. So it’s a bad message to Tatum on top of it. Secondly, I’m not sure their games are all that compatible. Aside from the toughness element that you were talking about, their games are kind of similar. I think they’re both guys that you want to start the offense with the ball in their hands. So like once again, we’re going to have this back and forth thing again. Like I think with Brown and Tatum, it’s a little clearer as to, you know, what the pecking order is. You introduced Durant in there, and now the whole thing changes again.
Felger: I just. Would these guys do shams? Dirty like that still?
J Stew: Yes. They would I have be one Western Conference talent evaluator texted me and say shams and words have been totally used as puppets the last two weeks and it’s the nets just using them for leverage.
Felger: Okay.
J Stew: That’s a Western Conference talent evaluator, decision maker for an NBA team on a Western conference team who texted me that this morning.
