In the new season of the Netflix NBA docuseries Starting 5, Kevin Durant and James Harden get a focus in separate episodes, and they both addressed the latter’s sudden exit from the Brooklyn Nets after less than a year.
“When I got there, everything was good,” Harden said, as seen in a clip from the series below. “And then… uh.” Durant, when asked about Harden’s exit, didn’t have much to say. “Ask him about why he left Brooklyn like that,” he laughed. “Hopefully, since he’s on a Netflix special, he’s gonna be a bit more real than he would be if he was doing a press conference about it.”
Harden said that COVID-19 was partly to blame for his exit from the team, and that he never felt truly healthy when playing with the Nets. “I wasn’t myself,” he said. “It was a lot. Yeah… it was a lot.” Durant added, “What happened, bro? We was looking good.”
When Harden requested a trade from the Houston Rockets to the Brooklyn Nets at the end of 2020, he intended to create a superteam with Kyrie Irving and his former Oklahoma City Thunder, Kevin Durant. He got his trade request granted in 2021, but by February, 2022, he was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers. Since 2023, he’s been with the Los Angeles Clippers, while Durant was traded to the Houston Rockets earlier this year.
Things haven’t been great between the two former teammates ever since Harden’s exit from the Nets. In 2023, Harden described his time with the team as “frustrating,” but also noted they only got to play less than 20 games together. “Hopefully everybody’s in a good place now and we can move on,” he said. “I don’t look like the crazy one. I don’t look like the quitter or whatever the media wanna call me. I knew what was going on and I just decided I’m not built for this. I don’t wanna deal with that. I wanna play basketball and have fun and enjoy doing it. Fast forward to today, they got a whole new roster.”
Durant, meanwhile, has subtly shaded his former teammate throughout the years. During the 2022 NBA All-Star Draft with fellow team captain LeBron James, he tried to rationalize why he chose Rudy Gobert over James Harden.
ComplexCon returns to Las Vegas on October 25–26, 2025, with over 300 brands and live performances by Young Thug, YEAT & Friends, Peso Pluma, Central Cee, Ken Carson, and more. Get your tickets now.