As the night before the NBA trade deadline was dwindling, NBA executives were clearly not sleeping as rumored deals came fast and furious. It started with the 3 team blockbuster that landed the Lakers D’Angelo Russell, and became even more chaotic with the reported deal of the Phoenix Suns acquiring superstar Kevin Durant for basically every 1st round pick the Suns could move.
After moving on from Kyrie Irving earlier in the week, the Nets appear to be entering a full scale rebuild, and have begun stockpiling resources.
The reported deal would be as follows:
Brooklyn Nets receive: Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson, Jae Crowder, 4 First round picks (2023,2025,2027,2029 all unprotected) and a pick swap.
Phoenix Suns receive: Kevin Durant, T.J. Warren
Kevin Durant is on his way to the Valley of the Sun pic.twitter.com/IegCUWEQuF
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) February 9, 2023
The massive haul brings and end to the franchise’s disastrous attempt to build a big three in Brooklyn as Durant, Irving, and Harden now all find themselves playing for other clubs. After the initial iteration failed, the Nets swapped out James Harden for Ben Simmons, which clearly has just not worked.
This past offseason Durant asked for a trade out of Brooklyn, but rescinded it as the season began and the Nets somehow were able to convince him to run it back with the flawed roster they had assembled. Unsurprisingly this season didn’t quite go as planned, as the Nets have never really got on track. They began the year 2-6, before Irving was suspended for promoting an anti semitic film on his social media.
There was the firing of Steve Nash as head coach, and the rumblings of Nets owner Joe Tsai wanting to hire Ime Udoka, despite him being suspended from his head coaching duties by the Celtics. Tsai eventually moved on to promoting Jacque Vaughn as full time head coach, and the Nets started to show some consistency.
Irving then decided to blow all of that up by publicly demanding a trade just this past week. Tsai moved him to Dallas, collecting an additional 1st in the process, but the return just wasn’t enough to make the Nets a legitimate threat come playoff time.
Moving Durant, one of the most talented players in the league, was a maneuver the Nets absolutely had to make. After giving away all of their own draft picks to the Houston Rockets in the deal for James Harden, the Nets had to sell high with Durant. They clearly aren’t in a position to make a run at the championship and with Durant’s injury history, his trade value is never going to be higher.
According to reports, the deal nearly involved a third team as the Atlanta Hawks briefly had the framework of a John Collins to Phoenix trade. However talks fizzled out, and the Nets and Suns moved quickly to finalize a deal.
The trade, once complete, will see Phoenix trot out a starting lineup that includes Chris Paul, Deandre Ayton, Devin Booker, and Kevin Durant. At 30-26, the Suns currently sit in 6th place in the wide open Western Conference. However they’re only 4 games back of 2nd seeded Memphis at the moment.
With Chris Paul’s advanced age (soon to be 38), new owner Mat Ishbia clearly felt that his new club had small championship window to work with and seized the moment.
Phoenix is next in action tonight vs. the Hawks, however it’s unclear whether Durant would be available for the game at the moment.
-Devon Gallant
Twitter: @DevGallant
Photo: Cyrus Saatsaz. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.