The Brooklyn Nets appear ready to honor the trade request of Kevin Durant despite the four years and $198 million remaining on his contract, which is a signal of how much Joe Tsai would like to move on. Tsai and Sean Marks had a contract standoff with Kyrie Irving, which Durant supported his teammate and threatened a trade request if a deal couldn't be agreed upon.

Durant reportedly contacted Tsai directly with his trade request. 

Joe Vardon writes at The Athletic that "Tsai had already reached his limit, multiple sources told The Athletic, after years of injuries, off-court embarrassments and playoff failures were followed by threats leaked by Irving and Durant during Brooklyn’s contract negotiations with Irving."

Durant and Irving signed with the Nets in 2019, at least in part, due to the franchise's willingness to give the two of them considerable control. One of the major initial moves was also signing DeAndre Jordan to a contract considerably higher than what he would have received on the open market at that stage in his career. The Nets later fired Kenny Atkinson, which was believed to be due to his preference to start Jarrett Allen over Jordan. The Nets later included Allen in their trade for James Harden.

Brian Windhorst also said that "Tsai would rather have a team that plays hard that he's proud to own that wins 40 games and fights for the Play-In than have a team that has way more talent that he's not proud to be a part of.”

Windhorst indicated that the frustrations went beyond Irving's refusal to get vaccinated. 

"It was about the intrinsic way they went about their business that completely turned off the organization and they said we're not going to this anymore," said Windhorst.