Kevin Durant on James Harden requesting a trade from Brooklyn

“Ask him about that shit…about why he left Brooklyn like that, hopefully since he on the Netflix special, he going to be a little more real than he would be doing a press conference about it” pic.twitter.com/AOZpAq1DGv

— Fullcourtpass (@Fullcourtpass) October 16, 2025

The Brooklyn Nets have not had been close to competing for a championship in a few seasons at this point, but there is still much to discuss from the past. Brooklyn once had a team led by NBA greats in Kevin Durant and James Harden, but after Harden wanted out shortly after coming to the team, it seemed that everything ended before it began.

“Ask him about that (expletive)…about why he left Brooklyn like that, hopefully since he on the Netflix special, he going to be a little more real than he would be doing a press conference about it,” Durant said during a recent episode of Netflix’s “Starting Five” show. Despite how many times this topic has been discussed, there always seems to be more to be said whenever the players involved are asked about it from a different standpoint.

“It was like COVID. Never was fully-healthy in Brooklyn so I was like… I wasn’t myself,” Harden said to begin his explanation on why he asked out of Brooklyn shortly after arriving before not giving much of an elaboration on what he was saying. “It was a lot. It was a lot. Yeah, it was a lot.”

While Harden has given multiple reasons for why he wanted out of Brooklyn, his initial reason for wanting to leave the Nets was due to the lack of organizational structure, according to his interview with Yaron Weitzman of Fox Sports (h/t to Chris Milholen of Nets on SI). In the same interview, Harden also noted that the operation in Brooklyn wasn’t what he “expected” and that led to him eventually being traded to the Philadelphia 76ers.

When it comes to the breakup of the Big 3 that seemingly never was, Durant and Harden seem to be have different motivations, but any Nets fans can admit that the COVID pandemic made it hard for this team to stay together. This Netflix episode did not expose much more than the general public already knows of the situation, but it was another chance for at least two of the players involved to speak on it again.