It was Phoenix. It was always Phoenix.
Even before Kevin Durant requested a trade from the Brooklyn Nets last June, mere minutes before the NBA's 2022 free agency period began, word had already spread among league personnel: Durant's eye was wandering toward the Suns. If he could ever angle away from the franchise Durant joined in 2019 alongside Kyrie Irving,loomed on a tantalizing horizon.
Durant has harbored an affinity for Phoenix head coach Monty Williams from shared days in Oklahoma City and with Team USA basketball. He’s known to hold deep respect for Paul. Like LeBron James annually choosing Damian Lillard in the league’s recent All-Star Game draft between captains, you may recall Durant selected Booker with his first choice among All-Star reserves ahead of last February’s midseason classic.
Who knows what an open bidding for Durant would have brought? But few teams could have traded a commensurate haul to the Nets and still been left with a roster capable of supporting Durant’s chase for another ring. Could New Orleans or Memphis have a similar capacity to deal young players and draft capital? That’s for certain. But Phoenix was the ending Durant clearly sought for this script to include. By all accounts, the Suns and Nets worked on this blockbuster in relative quiet.
His possible departure had lingered over the Irving trade talks and the rest of the NBA’s trade market at large. Dinwiddie and Finney-Smith marked win-now additions in the wake of Irving’s send off, but the likelihood that Brooklyn could viably compete for a championship this season, and sustain the winning environment a 34-year-old Durant craves, had dwindled significantly.
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