That shyt Dolan said about not wanting to offer Durant a max was him trying to save face, Durant didn't want to come to the Knicks so Dolan played the "fukk you, you ugly anyways bytch!" card. At one point in time I firmly believe KD wanted to come to the Knicks, there was too much smoke for it not to be true. What I think happened is that Mills got wind of it through back channels or whatever, then he overplayed his hand by trading KP away for seemingly nothing ( the trade looks better in retrospect, but it feels like dumb luck played a major part in that somehow ) assuming KD and Kyrie would want to come to the Knicks, regardless of how barren the team was. Say what you want about KP, but in theory he's a player that everybody would love to have as a teammate, and KD and Kyrie have said glowing things about KP in the past. Plus you gotta factor in the shyt that Kyrie and KD were caught saying at the all star break (before KP was traded), the situation with Draymond and KD at the beginning of that season, the fact that KD's dad is hardcore Knicks fan, that KD's agent is a Knicks fan, the rumors that Kyrie wanted to get traded to the Knicks before he got traded to the Celtics, etc. There's just too much shyt that aligns with the idea that KD and Kyrie wanted to actually come to NY at one point. It's easy for anybody to say that KD and Kyrie always had the Nets in mind in retrospect, and that the rumors were slightly off, but you gotta remember that at the beginning of that season, the Knicks were considered to have a way brighter future than the Nets at the time. The Nets turning it around and the situation with KP kind of came out of nowhere, and drastically changed the outlooks on both teams.