At a time like this, on the last day NBA teams are eligible to swap players throughout the league, there’s generally an intense fixation on every last detail of every single deal. Even fans on Twitter ask: What did the pick protections look like? How has Player X shot the ball from deep over the last month? What does this trade mean for the team’s long-term cap situation?
If those things matter to armchair fans, they obviously matter even more to the teams who are finalizing the high-stakes deals to begin with. But in thinking about the huge deal the Suns made for Kevin Durant, the nitty-gritty details almost feel secondary for one simple reason: After this last year and change, Durant and this Phoenix club seem to desperately need each other.
Durant, coming off a controversial yet enchanted run of two titles with Golden State, opted to pack his bags for Brooklyn as he recovered from his Achilles tear. He and close friend Kyrie Irving joined the Nets together, but the marriage was a failed one of epic proportions.
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Even though Irving was the driving force and catalyst in things going off the rails with the Nets (particularly with James Harden wanting to leave as Irving got to play in just road games), Durant isn’t exactly blameless. Aside from solid coach Kenny Atkinson’s departure in March 2020—before he’d even coached a rehabbing Durant—the superstar almost certainly had a hand in the club’s decision to hire his friend Steve Nash, who hadn’t ever been a head coach before. Then, after Durant requested a trade this past offseason, he reportedly issued an ultimatum saying to fire Nash and general manager Sean Marks or to deal him elsewhere.
Through it all, though, there’s always been an impression that Durant is someone who merely loves the sport—someone who loves it so passionately that he’d almost never hold out—because it’s in his blood to play and compete. And in getting moved to the club that was at the top of his wish list this past summer, Durant now figures to get that chance without as many distractions. This is as clean a slate as Durant’s had since being a franchise player back in Oklahoma City.
Speaking of a clean slate, the Suns just this week got a new owner in Mat Ishbia, who replaces Robert Sarver, who was investigated and found to have violated just about every workplace guideline there was in the rule book over a period of many years. Beyond that, there’s something to be said for the need to retool a team that, yes, won a league-best 64 regular-season contests in 2022 after reaching the NBA Finals in ’21, but ultimately came up embarrassingly short in a head-scratching, 33-point Game 7 loss at home in last season’s Western Conference semifinals.
Merely running it back, as the Suns essentially did, was never going to feel like enough, even if their regular-season mark has again looked respectable. More firepower was always necessary, especially in light of Chris Paul getting older and seeing his efficiency slip, and especially with the team finally suffering the sort of injuries it avoided for so long after the past two seasons. Short of finding a younger, high-level guard to replace Paul, bringing in an MVP-caliber player of KD’s stature was always the right answer for how to take this franchise—which has never won a title—to new heights with this collection of core players.
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Pushing in the chips for Durant carries a heavy risk and pricey cost, though. The risk, obviously, is that Durant is 34, and for the last several years, since that last season he spent with the Warriors, has been injury prone. As he was dealt, in fact, he was rehabbing a sprained MCL in his right knee. (Last season, he sprained his left MCL, which caused him to miss six weeks.) And while there’s ample star power without Durant on nights when he can’t go, both the 37-year-old Paul and Devin Booker have missed time this season with injuries of their own.
That’s what makes the cost for Durant such a challenge. The four first-rounders and one pick swap aside, star wing defender Mikal Bridges, who’s played 365 games out of a possible 365 over the last four-plus seasons, is headed East to pester the best scorers in that conference. He showed some signs of regression in terms of his efficiency this season while taking on a bigger role. But it’s not a stretch to think the ironman could blossom into a 20-point-per-game scorer in the next couple of years along with being a perennial Defensive Player of the Year candidate. That’s also without considering that the Suns dealt away 26-year-old forward Cam Johnson, a two-way player who’s due for a new contract, but who shoots 45% from three-point range. Even the inclusion of Jae Crowder—who’d sat out all season after reportedly expressing disagreement over his starting spot being handed to Johnson—was noteworthy. (The Nets immediately flipped Crowder to Milwaukee for five second-round selections.) Phoenix’s moves diminish a chunk of the youth, depth and wing defense that it could use in a conference (hell, even within the Pacific division) that has an abundance of incredible scorers.
Again, though, that’s the trade-off that both sides will happily take for now: For the Suns to have a Three-Headed Hydra of experienced, midrange assassins, who can all serve as playmakers, and for Durant to be the equivalent of Red walking along the beach at the end of The Shawshank Redemption. Both the star and his new team can start to turn the page on the strange, not-quite-enough ordeals of the past year and a half. They can now dream about the possibility of coming out of the West and winning a title if everything comes together the way they hope.
