Kevin Durant picked Nets before he spoke with team, Sean Marks says

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As the rest of the NBA world was on pins and needles on June 30 waiting for Kevin Durant to make his free agency decision, Nets general manager Sean Marks told reporters Tuesday that they were in the exact same boat.

Marks said he didn't know that KD was leaving the Warriors for Brooklyn until he announced it on Instagram at 6:02 p.m. ET that day.

Marks went on to say that he eventually met with Durant on Monday in Los Angeles.

This backs up what Chris Mannix reported in a feature for Sports Illustrated on Tuesday, where Marks expressed "shock" that Durant had indeed joined the Nets.

As Mannix writes:

On the afternoon of June 30, Marks and his staff gathered in the war room for the opening hours of free agency. Internally, there was confidence that the team was positioned to land two of the biggest names on the market: Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. “Nervous anticipation,” says Marks. Just before 5 p.m. came the first reports: Both planned to sign with the Nets. It wasn’t until an Instagram post an hour later confirmed Durant’s intentions that Marks fully believed KD was coming. “That sent a shock wave through everyone,” Marks says.

While the fact that Marks knew nothing more than we did seems unlikely, it's certainly possible KD kept his cards close to the vest. Before his free agency process began, Durant said “he couldn’t be recruited,” so perhaps he felt he didn’t need to give the Nets a heads up.

[RELATED: Portis: Players knew KD and Kyrie would join Nets in February]

Then again, maybe he already subliminally told the Nets he would be choosing Brooklyn with his hat choice back in April.

(Probably not).

Regardless, Durant officially is in Brooklyn and he’ll don a new number. All of this is just semantics, really.

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