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Kendrick Perkins: Brooklyn Nets are the front-runners to land Kevin Durant

 

(Photo credit- DON EMMERT/AFP/GettyImages)

Golden State Warriors forward Kevin Durant will miss all of the 2019-20 season, but he still has a decision to make on where he will call home next season after free agency. The former back-to-back Finals MVP could re-sign with the Warriors or elsewhere.

Kendrick Perkins, who is a former teammate of Durant, was a guest on ESPN’s “The Jump” and shared, according to his sources, that the Brooklyn Nets are the front-runner to sign Durant. Both Durant and Perkins spent four seasons together as members of the Oklahoma City Thunder from 2011-2015 before Perkins was traded to the Utah Jazz on February 19, 2015, in a three-team deal that also included the Detroit Pistons. The Jazz would decide to waive Perkins two days later.

ESPN NBA Insider Brian Windhorst didn’t refute Kendrick Perkins’ claim. In fact, he stated that Brooklyn is “gaining confidence” in terms of landing Durant this summer.

With a little over nine minutes left in the second quarter of Game 5 of the NBA Finals, Kevin Durant injured the same leg in which he’d been battling a calf strain. He tried to limp off the floor on his own, but teammate Andre Iguodala and Warriors director of sports medicine Rick Celebrini assisted him.

It turns out Durant tore his Achilles tendon in his right leg.

Enter former NBA All-Star Center Dwight Howard; he was interviewed at the New York premiere of Shaft earlier this month. AM New York’s Derrell Johnson asked Howard what advice would he give Kevin Durant in terms of playing or sitting out.

(Quote transcribed by Heavy’s Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson):

I can’t tell another man what to do. As a player, you never want to play hurt. When you get out there and play and lose, everyones going to say: ‘Well, you didn’t look hurt to me,’ or whatever it may be. So you have to do what’s going to be best for you in that situation and understand that your body is what you use to make money and while you’re playing you have to make sure you take care of it.

Former Warriors guard Stephen Jackson was a guest on the Voice of the Fans, and Cameron Buford, who is one of the hosts asked Jackson if he was surprised that Golden State allowed Kevin Durant to play in Game 5?

Well, my thing was I was on the outside looking in. So, even though I talk to KD, I didn’t know how he actually felt. I was only going off his love of the game and if he was healthy to play, he was going to play. I didn’t know how serious his calf injury was obviously, he knew and that is why he sat out for so long and the doctors and everyone else knew. So, I guess he was playing off the love of the game and heart. If I would have known the calf injury was in the condition it was in I wouldn’t have told him to play, but every man makes his own decisions. I talked to KD and he didn’t blame it on anyone because it was a decision he made.

There have been several reports since the All-Star break back in February, that Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving were looking to team up with either the Knicks or Nets possibly. It seems that the could still be a possibility despite Durant will be out next season. We will have to see what both Irving and Durant decide on June 30th at 6 p.m. ET.

What do you think?

Written by Landon Buford

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