By now, most people know that Brooklyn Nets stars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving are basically best friends. It's one of the main reasons the two All-Stars wanted to play together in Brooklyn, each signing a four-year deal (along with DeAndre Jordan) during the summer of 2019.

Sure enough, the two go a long way back. Durant first started to appreciate who Irving was during Kyrie's rookie season with the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2011-12 season when KD was still with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The Nets' superstar small forward talked about how his relationship with Irving started to grow after the point guard sent him a text message before the Cavs and Thunder faced off in 2011-12.

Via Brian Lewis of the New York Post:

“Me and Kyrie have a mutual friend in Jeff Rogers who worked at Nike. He was our grassroots guy,” the Nets star said on his podcast called The ETCs with Kevin Durant.

“Over time once Ky got into the league, Jeff just happened to throw us in the text one night. We were playing the Cavs…and me looking at it like we’re No. 1 in the West, we’re playing against a (crappy) Cavs team – this is before I’d seen the light on Kyrie Irving – and I get this text from Jeff and Ky, and Ky was straight up serious. I’m joking around thinking it’s just another game, and Ky was so locked-in, like ‘We’re going to see tomorrow.' It wasn’t what’s up little bro, big bro; it’s like alright, I’m going to see what’s up tomorrow.”

Irving made a huge impression on Durant with that text message, and the rest is history. The new faces of the Nets were teammates in 2016 on the Olympic team. During that time, they started to realize they were very similar both on and off the court.

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A viral video during All-Star weekend in 2019 showing Irving and Durant talking in the hallway pretty much solidified the two future Hall of Famers were going to sign with the same team. However, not many people thought it was going to be the Nets.

Since Irving was a Nets fan growing up, though, and Durant didn't want to play for the New York Knicks, Uncle Drew and KD decided to join Brooklyn.