Would Kevin Durant play in the international basketball league Maverick Carter is trying to create?
His manager isn’t saying no.
“I think everything’s on the table,” Rich Kleiman, Durant’s longtime manager and business partner, said on CNBC Thursday morning.
Carter, also LeBron James’s longtime business partner, is currently seeking $5 billion from global investors for a league that would operate in Europe and serve as an “alternative,” as Kleiman put it, to the NBA. Few details about the league and what it would look like have been made public, but Kleiman said it could co-exist with the NBA, comparing it to Unrivaled and the WNBA.
“I think when you’ve had, let’s say one organization that’s existed in a particular field like the NBA has—and I’m as big of an NBA fan as there is—there is room for disruption,” Kleiman said on Squawk Box. “We’ve seen that. And I think ultimately the way the NBA has operated historically, there is an 82-game schedule, it’s rigorous, as you see players do not have control over where they’re going, if you’re playing in a city or get traded to a city that’s away from your family and nobody should ask for sympathy for this matter, but this is what it means to be in the NBA.”
Kleiman went on to say that an alternative option that lets players have a shorter schedule, to play in different markets, and spend more time at home with their family could be attractive. “It’s all about how you approach it. But I don’t think it’s so crazy to think that those guys could pull this off,” he said.
Kleiman was then asked if Durant, who is currently in his 18th NBA season and plays for the Phoenix Suns, would be interested in playing in such a league. He went back and forth before arriving at an answer.
“I mean no,” Kleiman said. “I don’t know. I don’t know. Yes—potentially actually. If there was an opportunity for Kevin to extend his NBA career and he wanted to be somewhere he loves playing basketball and the economics made sense and the opportunity made sense, and I think the guys putting this together are obviously the right people to do this, and I think they have the right vision.”
Durant is 36 and continues to be among the game’s best players despite his age. The bigger question with Durant this week has been where he will play after Thursday’s 3 p.m. ET trade deadline. The Suns reportedly started listening to offers for the 6-foot-10 forward, but is expected to retain him.
It’s unknown how involved Durant and Kleiman are, if at all, with Carter’s league, but the two are minority owners in French football club Paris Saint-Germain, which would make them a good strategic partner given their European business ties to one of the continent’s biggest cities.
Kleiman also said Carter’s league would be a good option for an NBA player in their early 40s to keep playing on a more realistic schedule.
Regardless, he doesn’t look at the league as an issue for the NBA.
“There’s optionality,” Kleiman said. “The NBA isn’t going anywhere.”
