Skip Bayless Trashes Breathless Speculation About Kevin Durant: He’s ‘Going Nowhere!’
Skip Bayless trashed breathless speculation about Brooklyn Nets superstar Kevin Durant being traded to the Boston Celtics.
“I’m dug in on this. I’m not gonna back off this. Kevin Durant is going nowhere!” said Bayless emphatically during FS1’s Undisputed on Monday.
Bayless called the speculation of Durant going to Beantown as “legit,” “valid,” and “enticing,” but in the end it would be silly for the Nets to trade the star player. He said that the Celtics could offer Jayson Tatum, Marcus Smart, Grant Williams and three future first-round draft picks and the Nets would still reject an offer for Durant.
“You cannot replace the best player on the planet,” said Bayless. “You can try all that you want, but it just won’t be the same because in the end there’s only one of these guys and they don’t grow on Southern California palm trees.”
Bayless went on to say Durant wouldn’t be intrigued by the possibility of putting the Celtics, who lost the 2022 NBA Finals to the Golden State Warriors, over the top the way Durant did with the Warriors in 2017 and 2018. Bayless said Durant was motivated to help the Warriors since he wanted to outmaneuver LeBron James and help Warriors superstar Stephen Curry win a couple more championships since the team’s 2015 title.
Bayless remarked that one irreplaceable player, like Durant, can make a team competitive as was the case with James on the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Bayless noted that Durant has four more years remaining on his contract “and they’re still owed to the Brooklyn Nets, so I still say the Nets are going to listen to all the offers and then they’re going to shake their heads and say, ‘No, we like what we are because we left what we were when we started last year as the betting favorite to win it all, going into last regular season when we did have KD, Kyrie [Irving] and James Harden.” Harden was traded in February to the Philadelphia 76ers in exchange for Ben Simmons.
Bayless said that the core for the Nets is there in Durant, Irving “and a healthy Ben Simmons.”
Watch above, via FS1.
