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It's been quite a 72-hour stretch for the Brooklyn Nets, who lost two superstar players in Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant in the blink of an eye. The Nets went all in to try to poach Toronto Raptors forward Pascal Siakam from north of the border to convince Durant to stay with the team, according to ESPN's Zach Lowe.
“I think they told him, ‘Hey man, in the summer, we can get some big names. There are going to be some big names who might ask out. We are going to collect stuff to give ourselves a shot at it,'” Lowe said on The Lowe Post podcast.
“I’m not going to name who those names are, but I think that’s a conversation that was had. They tried to get Pascal Siakam now in the intervening 96 hours because Kevin Durant made it known he likes Pascal Siakam. He thought he would be a good fit.”
Obviously, that didn't work out, as the Raptors didn't end up trading Siakam. Durant was traded to the Phoenix Suns in a blockbuster deal; reportedly, the Suns were the only team in the NBA the Nets discussed a Durant deal with.
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“Brooklyn appeared to realize a trade with Phoenix was inevitable once they couldn't land Siakam,” Lowe stated.
Kevin Durant's time with the Nets ended shortly after; he was traded to the desert for Mikal Bridges, Cameron Johnson, Jae Crowder and four first-round picks. Crowder was flipped to the Milwaukee Bucks shortly after.
Although the Toronto Raptors were considered “the centre of the NBA trade deadline,” with names like Fred VanVleet, O.G. Anunoby and Siakam on the block, they didn't trade a single one of those players.
Instead, they made just one deal — acquiring former first-round Raptors draft pick Jakob Poeltl from the San Antonio Spurs.
