Winners and Losers of Blockbuster Kevin Durant Trade
While NBA fans all over the world were bracing for Sunday’s Game 7 between the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder, ESPN’s Shams Charania broke the long-awaited news on a Kevin Durant trade.
That’s right. KD is a Houston Rocket. And Houston didn’t have to surrender any of its most promising young players. It still owns future Phoenix Suns picks. And it got out of a Jalen Green contract that may age poorly.
This is a purely additive move for the Rockets and a head-scratcher for Phoenix.
But those two aren’t the only winners and losers here.
Winner: Kevin Durant
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The Brooklyn Nets had to tear their roster down to the studs to add and then appease KD and Kyrie Irving. A couple years later, the Suns punted on a bright future and much of a core that had already been to the Finals to take their own shot at life with Durant.
Both situations ended badly. In fact, they ended in pretty spectacularly bad fashion.
In Houston, Durant is joining an up-and-comer that didn’t gut itself to add him. It didn’t even come close. Each of the Rockets’ top three players in terms of Wins Over Replacement Player—the ultimate catch-all NBA stat—in 2024-25 are still on the team. Going further on this stat: seven of their top eight remain.
KD is headed to a loaded supporting cast with an All-Star in Alperen Şengün who’ll happily play point center and get him the ball. He’ll often be surrounded by some of the most dynamic defense in the league from Tari Eason and Amen Thompson. He’ll get to play with shooters like Fred VanVleet and Reed Sheppard and in an Ime Udoka-run system that values spacing.
Perhaps most importantly, Durant is going to a team that needs and should appreciate his ability to create his own shot out of nothing in crunch time.
This is, without question, a massive win for one of the greatest players of all time.
Loser: Phoenix Suns
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There may be some temptation to look at a trade package that includes a young scorer, a veteran whose salary may be movable in another trade, a first-round pick and five seconds favorably. Durant turns 37 in September, after all. Maybe no one else was willing to part with an unprotected first, and the one from Houston is in this summer’s top 10.
But this deal has to be analyzed in context with the broader teardown Phoenix has undergone since making the Finals in 2021 (a teardown facilitated in part to add Durant).
Seen through that lens, this is a full-scale disaster.
If there isn’t another trade coming (and early reporting suggests there isn’t), a Jalen Green-Devin Booker backcourt is likely to have worse “your turn, my turn” vibes than Booker and KD had. Bradley Beal is still there too. And there’s no starting point guard (at least not right now) and still not much of an asset base.
Phoenix may enter the season with three shoot-first guards who all need the ball and no financial flexibility to build a supporting cast around them.
Somehow, the Suns might be even more of a mess than they were before this trade.
Winner: Houston Rockets
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The deal that eventually materialized suggests that the market for KD wasn’t strong. And that shouldn’t be all that surprising. He’s nearing the end of a career in which he’s already played for four teams (Houston will be his fifth). And things got pretty ugly by the end at least three of those stops.
But even at his advanced age, Durant is significantly better than Green, Brooks or whoever might’ve been available at No. 10 (at least right now).
- 2024-25 Durant: 26.6 points, 4.2 assists, 2.6 threes, 64.2 true shooting percentage, 3.2 box plus/minus
- 2024-25 Green: 21.0 points, 3.4 assists, 2.9 threes, 54.4 true shooting percentage, 0.5 box plus/minus
- 2024-25 Brooks: 14.0 points, 1.7 assists, 2.5 threes, 55.5 true shooting percentage, -1.4 box plus/minus
And talented young players like Sheppard and Cam Whitmore, who struggled to get on the floor for a deep Rockets team last year, can help make up for the fact that this was a three players-for-one trade.
It’s a lot of second-round picks. But for context, second round picks are often bought on draft night.
All in all, Houston made out like a bandit here.
This move takes it from ahead-of-schedule upstart to legitimate title contender.
Loser: Devin Booker
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Booker may feel at home in Phoenix. He may want a Kobe Bryant-like run with one single team for his whole career.
But there has to be a realist in there who thinks back to the 2020-21 team that won the West. And that side has to silently wonder: How did this happen?
Over the course of new owner Mat Ishbia’s time at the helm, a championship contender has completely imploded into an asset- and cap space-light team that still pays a fortune for its roster and will likely miss the play-in for the second year in a row.
If the Suns are way out of the playoff picture in February, will Booker ask for a trade? That suddenly feels like a real possibility.
Potential Winner: Pat Riley
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In the early moments after news of the trade broke, there were plenty of dunk attempts on longtime Miami Heat executive Pat Riley.
Miami and Phoenix were reportedly the last two teams bidding on KD, and when the Heat came up short, word of what they were unwilling to give up surfaced.
And while some combination of the above may not seem like a lot for Durant, it’s fair to wonder if a Tyler Herro-Bam Adebayo-KD core (without much of a supporting cast) would’ve meaningfully contended for a title. Even if a Durant trade could’ve opened a window to contend, it’s fair to wonder how long it would’ve been open.
Time may ultimately prove Riley right on this one.
Loser (for now): Jalen Green
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It has to be a bit of a bummer for Green to be traded by the team that drafted him right as it was taking off. In that sense, he probably belongs on the “loser” side of the ledger.
But this is also an opportunity for growth and maybe even some reinvention.
The No. 2 scorer role is up for grabs in Phoenix. And perhaps more importantly, so is the point guard position.
If Green, who’s sometimes been described as selfish or not a winning player, can channel more of his natural talent into creating for others and passing, we might eventually look back on this trade as the turning point in a great career.
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