Well, listen, this was an idea hatched by both Kevin Durant and James Harden in the off season when they were together, uh, playing pickup daily in Los Angeles, and James Harden went to the Rockets.

He asked for the trade, said he wanted Brooklyn.

He eventually expanded the list toe four teams.

But really, the focus was Brooklyn and Philadelphia.

And those were the two teams over the last 48 72 hours before the trade that Houston was really focused on in trade talks.

But ultimately, for the Nets, their willingness to, uh, deliver Houston.

Ah, multitude of first round picks, four picks and all, including one that will come from Cleveland, which is Milwaukee's first round pick in 2000 and 22.

You know that ultimately got the deal done, and no, now Brooklyn reunites James Harden and Kevin Durant.

Obviously, they played together in Oklahoma City that went to the finals together once upon a time in O.

K.

C.

With Russell.

Westbrook is a part of that team as well, and just very quickly what if anything, does this mean as far as the Kyrie Irving situation is concerned.

Well, it means that Brooklyn now, with all three players eligible for free agency after next season, you know, I think they have.

They can sleep a little better knowing that Kevin Durant, who is the focus of this organization, who they wanna build it around, continue to build it around, that he has somebody in James Harden that they believe they can count on moving forward.

And and they hope that Kyrie Irving is a part of that, too.

But they needed as much as anything to be able to solidify uh, Durant's future.

And there is uncertainty right now about Kyrie Irving.

He remains away from the team.

There hasn't been a significant communication between he and the team, and there's a lot of talking that's gonna have to go on once he returns or as he returns.

And I think for the Nets not just having these three stars, but I think solidifying their future with Kevin Durant.

Alright, we'll see where that goes.

Well, with outstanding thank you, Let me now bring in Richard Jefferson, who knows all about playing on great teams who played with Kyrie Irving in Cleveland and you also work with the Nets and doing some of their games.

So you know the ins and outs there.

Let's live in a world where the three of them do come together.

First, let's talk about that trio.

If they do play together, can they win a championship this year?

I'm going to say they have a very good chance.

I do believe that they could win a championship if we're talking about James Harden getting back in championship shape, if Kyrie Irving coming back and has the right, you know, mentality in the right spirit to compete at that type of level because when you're trying to win a championship, it takes 100 percent of your focus.

Everything you eat, the way you sleep, everything that you think about.

So if Kyrie Irving's you know, mind or spirit or whatever it is is not in that place right now, for whatever reason thing that's going to be very difficult of James Harden stays and kind of in the shape that he's in right now, that's going to be very difficult.

But if they come back and they all get every physically and mentally right, then they're going to be a force to reckon with.

Let's talk about what they will look like together on the floor K D and Harden.

Of course, they play together.

We've just heard would say that the two of them sort of orchestrated this.

They wanted to play together.

How do they work together now?

We know K D is the most prolific scorer of his generation, and obviously Harden dominates the ball.

How do they play together now?

Well, it's all about sacrifice.

Whenever you know, Kevin Durant says that he's going to go to Golden State or LeBron James and Chris Bosh say they're going to go to Miami or you get Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett going to Boston.

Whenever you get these big threes, the first thing that you need to say is that there is going to be sacrificed.

I'm gonna have to average 25 instead of 35 if I'm James Harden, and a lot of it is going to be because some nice you should be blowing out team, so you shouldn't be playing that much in the fourth quarter.

This is a very different Big Three than we've seen in a long time, even the one in Golden State when you're Tomball, Clay, Steph and Kevin Durant.

They were all ball movement.

They were shooters.

They would run around and play off the ball, and you had guys that could feed them.

Easy jump shots.

And you couldn't double anywhere where these three players are all very, very good ball dominant players.

So they're all going to have to tweak their games, shoots amore, spot up shots.

That's going to be the key thing and lasting.

If you're going to win a championship, even with the great offense, you need great defense.

The Nets were already, you know, in a kind of a struggle in their defense of area.

That was probably the one area that they want to improve on.

So adding James Harden to that don't Obviously that's not.

That's not a defense of improvements and offensive improvement, but that's one of the areas that they'll need to address down the stretch.

Yes, no one has ever said we got James Harden.

Our defense is going to be terrific.

So let me go to you on Kyrie.

You played with him in Cleveland and so you know him what?

It's such an understandable situation right now for so many people.

What is your best sense of where this thing goes?

I truly and truly don't know.

And I stand by this You look at all the W MBA players that took time off to focus on social injustice.

You look at all the MBA players that chose to not go into the bubble for, you know, whether they just didn't have it in them.

They just didn't like there was just too much going on.

There was other areas that they wanted to focus in on.

If Kyrie Irving wants to focus on something other than basketball and he wants to focus on social injustice, if he wants to focus on social change, we 100% support him.

The one issue is that there has to be 100% transparent communication.

Kyrie, Irving even himself donated a million dollars, uh, to the W MBA fund to help pay for some of the salaries of the women that were sitting out to fight change.

So we fully support Kyrie in that.

But you can't have your head coach that you endorsed.

Sit down after you not show up for Game one and have him say, Well, I haven't spoke to Kyrie.

I reached out to him.

I haven't heard anything back since then.

There has been communication, but ultimately whatever Kyrie needs, if he needs time off if he needs, you know, to, you know, seek and talk to somebody just to get whatever his passion is back.

But Stephen A said that basketball has not been a priority for Kyrie.

And, you know, right now that seems to kind of be the census.

I've got literally 15 seconds.

But if he doesn't come back or if he isn't a part of it, k d and Harden and what they have around them, what is that?

Is that the When the East, it's It's, I think it's the I think it's the second best tandem in the MBA behind LeBron James and Anthony Davis.

So that makes them the best tandem in the Eastern Conference, which if they're healthy and they can build around them, then all of a sudden you look at a pretty good potential finals matchup.