Ever since Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant joined them, everybody around the league seems to have some kind of take on the Brooklyn Nets. They've been the team everybody talks about for two years now.
It's always championship-or-bust for the Nets. It's always how big their stars' ego is and how they won't be able to coexist. It's always how they won't be able to win a championship unless they play some defense.
That's why two-time NBA champion Kevin Durant did his best to just shut down the media, claiming that, regardless of how much they talk about them, the Nets have a roster full of veterans that don't mind the outside noise.
Kevin Durant Says The Nets Don't Care About The Media
"[When you are younger] you want to establish yourself in the league," Durant said, as quoted by ESPN."Sometimes you may overthink it and may think too much about reactions and opinions of others because you are on the journey to perfection. But start to relax a little bit and understand what this is about and understand the long game, and it definitely made my mental a little bit more at ease coming to the gym every day and not focusing on that stuff."
“As far as the outside noise, no disrespect for you guys (in the media), for our families, friends, and even our fans expecting us to do so much—if we don’t live up to those, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. But we want to come out and play a great brand of basketball every night and we hold ourselves to that standard. I expect us to come out there with some swagger and some intensity. But outside noise shouldn’t matter much to this group," he added.
“I think we all internally put pressure on ourselves because we hold ourselves to a high standard and you want to play well every time you step out there. That is just who we are as competitors," the two-time NBA champion concluded.
That's what you want to hear from your leader, especially considering how much criticism Kyrie Irving is facing over his anti-vaxx stance and the chance he might not play at Barclays Center next season.
