Each week during the 2024-25 NBA season, we will take a deeper dive into some of the league’s biggest storylines in an attempt to determine whether trends are based more in fact or fiction moving forward.
[Last week: The Thunder still lack 'playoff scars' to win it all]
Fact or Fiction: Kevin Durant to the Celtics just makes sense
New England Patriots legend Tom Brady joined a collection of Celtics, including Isaiah Thomas, Marcus Smart, Jae Crowder and Kelly Olynyk, for their July 2016 free-agent recruitment of Kevin Durant in the Hamptons. Days earlier, Boston had received a commitment from Al Horford, who embraced the team's vision, which featured a horde of draft assets, one of which it had just used to select Jaylen Brown.
Durant joined the Golden State Warriors instead. Three years, two NBA championships and one dust-up later, Durant successfully recruited Kyrie Irving from the Celtics to the Brooklyn Nets in 2019 free agency.
There ended Boston's dream of ever landing Durant in green. Or so we thought.
Three years after that, when he and Irving had tired of the Nets, each other or both, Durant requested a trade, and again the Celtics were reportedly among the suitors. They had just lost the 2022 NBA Finals.
According to Shams Charania, then of The Athletic, Boston offered Jaylen Brown, Derrick White and a draft pick in exchange for Durant in July 2022. Either that, or they had "not had any real discussions of substance with the Nets about Durant," as The Boston Globe's Adam Himmelsbach reported at the time.
It seems insane in retrospect if a) the Celtics ever made that offer and b) the Nets did not accept it.
Which brings us to 2025, nine years removed from 2016 free agency. FS1's Nick Wright, who has been wrong about the Celtics before, reported: "Two totally ...
