The Houston Rockets are buying and selling for Kevin Durant, CBS Information has confirmed. The deal will ship Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, the No. 10 choose on this week’s draft and 5 second-round picks to the Phoenix Suns in a blockbuster deal. Durant, coming into his 18th NBA season, will now be part of his fifth NBA team after stints with the Oklahoma City Thunder, Golden State Warriors, Brooklyn Nets and the Suns.
The Suns acquired Durant on the 2023 commerce deadline with a lot fanfare. Mat Ishbia had simply taken over the crew and he needed to make a splash, so he traded management of 5 first-round picks together with Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson and Jae Crowder to get the 2014 MVP. Nonetheless, the transfer was not sufficient to present Ishbia the contender he craved. The Suns misplaced within the second spherical to the Denver Nuggets in 2023. They have been swept by the Minnesota Timberwolves within the first spherical in 2024. Then, this season, they missed the postseason all collectively.
Rumors of Durant’s availability on the deadline got here seemingly out of nowhere on the deadline. His Suns had spent months making an attempt and failing to commerce Bradley Beal for Jimmy Butler. Subsequently, with the deadline nearing, they took a special strategy. They tried to commerce Durant again to the Warriors in a three-team deal that will have introduced in belongings from Golden State and Butler from the Warriors.
The one downside? Durant did not wish to return to the crew with whom he received his two championships. That scuttled the deal. Different groups sniffed round on the deadline, however Durant seemingly most popular to complete the season in Phoenix and determine his future later.
“Me going into your crew in the midst of the season it should be a giant blow to any crew I’ll,” Durant said on the time. “I get why you wish to commerce me, easy undeniable fact that’s simply enterprise. However for me taking a look at it, it simply does not make sense for both aspect to undergo that once we might simply play the season out and if that is the choice you wish to make within the offseason then you definitely determine it out.”
So Durant completed the marketing campaign in Phoenix after which received traded hours earlier than the ultimate recreation of the season. Durant’s first crew, the Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder, are enjoying for his or her first title in OKC and internet hosting the Indiana Pacers in Game 7 of the Finals on Sunday night time. Durant himself was on-stage on the Fanatics Fest in New York when the information broke Sunday afternoon.
The season was a hit individually for Durant, however at 36 years previous, indicators of slippage began to seep in for the primary time. Durant was nonetheless an All-Star choice final season, and his taking pictures numbers appeared principally the identical. However he will get to the basket lower than he did at his peak. His free-throw fee in Phoenix was solely 31%, down from a profession determine of 39.4%. A lot of the all-in-one metrics at this stage peg him as a really, superb participant, however not fairly the MVP he was at his peak.
Additional complicating a potential commerce was the fact that Durant, on an expiring contract, held some measure of management over the proceedings. No crew would surrender a considerable asset package deal for him if he did not wish to play for them. Durant laid the muse for this quickly after the deadline. “I need my profession to finish on my phrases. That is the one factor,” he said. That prevented an all-out bidding battle and with it any hopes the Suns had of recouping a package deal much like the one they paid for Durant on the 2023 commerce deadline.
Fortuitously, there was nonetheless a good quantity of pursuits that seemingly appealed to Durant. On the commerce deadline, it was reported that 5 groups held mutual curiosity with Durant in a potential deal: Houston, San Antonio, Minnesota, Miami and New York. When the offseason arrived, these 5 groups have been unsurprisingly on the entrance of the road, and positive sufficient, Durant wound up touchdown with one of many groups on that record. The Raptors, for what it is price, have been additionally reportedly within the combine.
However the Rockets are the crew that in all probability made essentially the most basketball sense from the beginning. Final 12 months, Houston had a suffocating protection and received by on offense because of its athleticism in transition and its unimaginable offensive rebounding. However producing good pictures within the half court docket proved a serious problem, and that was finally what doomed the Rockets within the playoffs.
The Suns are reportedly planning to maintain Inexperienced, although he performs the identical place as Suns star Devin Booker and Beal. Inexperienced scored 21 factors per recreation on 42.3/35.4/81.3 taking pictures splits for Houston in 2024-25, his fourth season within the NBA.
Few gamers in NBA historical past have been higher at producing clear appears to be like for themselves than Durant. He’s precisely the kind of half-court bucket-generator that the Rockets lacked final season, and in Houston, he reunites with Ime Udoka, who coached him in Brooklyn on Steve Nash’s workers, and Royal Ivey, an assistant on Udoka’s workers who’s each a former teammate and assistant coach of Durant’s. All events concerned right here knew what a clear match this could be, and now, after incomes a No. 2 seed within the 2024-25 season, the Rockets have discovered their offensive centerpiece.