Ex-Nets teammate: Kevin Durant gave up on playoff hopes during season

The seeds of Kevin Durant’s discontent in Brooklyn were planted well before his official trade request, at least if you believe one of his former teammates.

Appearing this week on an episode of the Players Choice podcast, ex-Nets guard Mike James made a pretty crazy claim about Durant. James said that Durant called him before this year’s playoffs started and said that the Nets were about to lose.

“When I went back overseas, [we talked] like, ‘Alright, whoever season end first, the other one gonna come to watch the playoffs,'” said James. “When I first said it, I thought, ‘OK, you’re gonna be in the Finals. I’m gonna get to go to the Finals, that’s lit.’ So when they was trash and they was losing, I called him one day and was like, ‘Alright, you know what this means right? You gonna come to my playoff game.’ He was like, ‘It’s no way I’m coming to your playoff game.’

“Then like a week later, he called me before the playoffs start,” James added of Durant. “He’s like, ‘Yeah, imma be there in like a couple of weeks. We [the Nets are] fitting to lose.”