Kevin Durant cheered, then booed as he dominates Nets in Brooklyn return: ‘Pointless’ to consider ‘what could’ve been’

Nets fans took a moment Wednesday to show appreciation for Kevin Durant, mostly cheering for their former superstar as Barclays Center aired the pregame tribute video he said he didn’t want.

Then the boos came.

Members of a sold-out crowd booed Durant when he touched the ball on Phoenix’s opening possession. They booed him the next time he handled it, too. And the next time.

The boos grew louder when Durant went to the free-throw line with 7:55 remaining in the opening quarter, and they continued when he made his first field goal – a 3-pointer from the top of the key – about four minutes later.

It didn’t matter. Durant carved up the Nets with the same assassin-like focus Brooklyn fans benefited from for years, feeding off of the contentious chorus en route to a game-high 33 points, five rebounds and eight assists in the Suns’ 136-120 win.

“I love to shut the crowd up,” a smiling Durant said afterward. “Even though I love these people here, I love to shut them up. There were some annoying people just trying to get my attention. ‘I hate you KD!’ But I look over. ‘I love you, man!’ They’ve got my jersey on.”

The jeers, while modest compared to what former teammate James Harden heard in his returns to Brooklyn, offered a reminder that Durant’s time with the Nets didn’t end up how anyone hoped.

Wednesday marked Durant’s first game at Barclays Center since Brooklyn granted his trade request just shy of a year ago and sent him to the Suns, representing the final domino to fall in the Nets’ ill-fated “Big Three” era.

The days leading up to Durant’s return brought back memories of a Brooklyn superteam that failed to meet expectations, with Durant saying Sunday he didn’t deserve a tribute video or connect enough with the fans.

But Nets coach Jacque Vaughn looked back fondly on his three-and-a-half years with Durant.

“In the world of negativity, it was a positive experience for me,” Vaughn said before Wednesday’s game. “K made me a better coach, and there’s one thing that I never, ever doubted: When I was a part of a staff or was coaching him as a head coach, going into a game, he wanted to win that game.”

Vaughn served as an assistant during Durant’s first three years in Brooklyn before replacing Steve Nash as head coach seven games into last season. It was more than midway through that 2022-23 campaign that the Nets traded Durant to Phoenix, three days after they shipped his superstar running mate, Kyrie Irving, to Dallas.

The Durant trade ended a tumultuous tenure in which he, Irving and Harden appeared in only 16 games together and managed just one playoff series win.

“That’s just a pointless exercise, in my opinion, to think about what could’ve been,” Durant said Wednesday. “What happened? That’s what I thought about. What actually happened, the reality of it. We didn’t have enough time together. That’s just it. Guys had to go their separate ways. We tried our hardest to salvage everything and bring everything together.”

Durant and Irving signed with the Nets in the summer of 2019, though Durant missed the entire 2019-20 season as he rehabbed from an Achilles tear he suffered weeks earlier in the NBA Finals as a member of the Golden State Warriors.

With Durant and Irving came sky-high aspirations for the 2020-21 season that rose even higher with the January 2021 arrival of the high-scoring Harden.

But a championship never came.

The terrific trio’s lone series triumph came in the first round of the 2021 postseason, when they eliminated the Boston Celtics in five games. Harden then hurt his right hamstring in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Milwaukee Bucks and, upon returning in Game 5, was clearly compromised. Irving hurt his right ankle in Game 4 and didn’t return in the series.

Durant nearly willed the Nets to the Eastern Conference Finals anyway, scoring 49, 32 and 48 points over the final three games against Milwaukee. Game 7 ended in heartbreak, however, as Durant’s toe tapped the 3-point line on what ended up being a long, game-tying two-pointer to force overtime. The Nets lost in overtime, and the Bucks went on to win the NBA Finals.

Everything unraveled from there. Irving sat out most of the 2021-22 season after declining to meet New York City’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Harden asked for a trade, which the Nets agreed to in February 2022 by sending him to Philadelphia. The Celtics swept the Nets out of the first round of the playoffs two months later.

“We had three or four different teams from when I signed here to when I left, but at the end of the day, I enjoyed coming to work, being a part of this community and playing and representing Brooklyn,” Durant said. “Regardless of what went on or what was said or how I felt, I still came to work.”

Durant asked for a trade during the 2022 offseason, but one didn’t materialize until the Nets sent him to Phoenix on Feb. 9, 2023, for a package that included Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson.

The 35-year-old Durant, a 14-time All-Star averaging 28.4 points per game this season, has the star-studded Suns squarely in the championship mix at 28-20. The Nets, who fell to 19-28, are still searching for their post-Durant identity, lacking a clear-cut superstar in a league driven by them.

Durant already faced the Nets in Phoenix on Dec. 13, scoring 27 points in a 116-112 loss.

But being back at Barclays Center brought different energy. Boos turned to groans as Durant drained a contested 3-pointer and banked in a short transition jumper on back-to-back possessions late in the third quarter with Phoenix pulling away. He punctuated his night with a pair of driving dunks a little after the midway point of the fourth quarter.

And even though he said didn’t want the 30-second tribute clip that aired during Wednesday’s player introductions, Durant acknowledged the “classy people” who made it happen.

“They appreciate everybody who donned a jersey,” Durant said after the game. “I respect that.”

The Barclays Center reunions aren’t over. Irving is set to return for the first time since his trade when the Mavericks visit Brooklyn on Tuesday.