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Which teams could send Nets largest return package in NBA history?

Which teams could send Nets largest return package in NBA history?

When news broke on NBA draft night that Kevin Durant was “monitoring the Brooklyn Nets’ situation and considering options with his future,” the team’s former assistant general manager turned ESPN front-office insider Bobby Marks suggested a trade “return package on Durant would be the largest in league history.”

It better be, because the Nets are already on the wrong end of one of the biggest trades in NBA history and living in fear of it happening again as we speak. Durant officially requested a trade from Brooklyn on Thursday.

The Nets traded three unprotected first-round picks and a pick swap for one middling season with past-their-prime Hall of Famers Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce in 2013. They bottomed out and gifted the Boston Celtics the foundation of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown that reached the NBA Finals inside of a decade.

If they do not maximize the return for Durant, the Nets could find themselves at the bottom of the standings again, owing every one of their first-round picks through 2027 to the Houston Rockets as a result of their failed James Harden experiment. They still have Kyrie Irving and Ben Simmons to show for their dalliances with Durant and Harden (for now), but you try predicting what will become of them in the months to come.

The biggest trades in NBA history

So, what is the biggest return package in NBA history, and is Durant really worth a bigger one?

You can pick your flavor between the All-NBA blockbuster 2019 deals that paired Anthony Davis with LeBron James on the Los Angeles Lakers and Paul George with Kawhi Leonard on the L.A. Clippers. This is not recency bias, but the willingness to trade every available first-round pick at once is a developing trend.

The Lakers parted with what amounted to nearly a decade’s worth of top-10 draft picks to land Davis: Brandon Ingram (the No. 2 overall pick in 2016), Lonzo Ball (No. 2 overall in 2017), the No. 4 overall pick in 2019 (De’Andre Hunter), the No. 8 overall pick this year (Dyson Daniels), a 2023 first-round pick swap and an unprotected first-round pick in 2024 (that can be deferred to 2025). It was arguably all worth it for the Lakers, who won a title in the 2020 bubble, but the New Orleans Pelicans were better within three years.

The Oklahoma City Thunder fetched Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Danilo Gallinari, five first-round picks and a pair of pick swaps, all between 2022 and 2026, for George. Jalen Williams, the No. 12 overall pick in this year’s draft, was the…

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