Grading the Kevin Durant Trade for Phoenix Suns and Houston Rockets and KD
A Kevin Durant trade has felt imminent for weeks. And on Sunday, ESPN's Shams Charania finally broke the news. KD is headed back to Texas, where he'll be a Houston Rocket.
The destination wasn't all that shocking. The Rockets have been a heavily rumored landing spot for a while. But the return was, to put it mildly, uninspiring.
And now that we have all the details for the blockbuster that moved one of the greatest players of all time, it's time to break out the rubric and red ink.
Grades for each team and Durant himself can be found below.
Houston Rockets: A+
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It's hard to look at this deal as anything but a massive, almost unquantifiable win for the Rockets.
If you want to get terribly nitpicky, you could say that giving up the No. 10 pick in this draft is maybe a bit aggressive for a soon-to-be-37-year-old who's unceremoniously (to put it mildly) left three teams in the last six years, but there's not much beyond that.
If you're just looking at the players directly involved, Durant had 8.1 wins over replacement player in 2024-25, despite playing in only 62 games. Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks combined for 5.7. KD's true shooting percentage this past season was around 10 points higher than the combined mark of Brooks and Green, too.
He is, without question, an on-court upgrade over either, and maybe even both of Green and Brooks. And because Houston was already so deep before this deal was made, the fact that it's three players (when you count the 10th pick) for one doesn't really matter. This just opens up minutes for Reed Sheppard and Cam Whitmore, two young players who almost certainly would've played more on a team that wasn't so seriously in the playoff hunt.
On those basics alone, it would've been relatively easy to give Houston an A or maybe B+. But then you start to dig into some of the other details. Alperen Şengün, Amen Thompson and Jabari Smith Jr. were all more valuable assets than Green. The Rockets kept them all (not to mention Sheppard, Whitmore and Tari Eason).
Houston also owns Phoenix's 2027 first-round pick and didn't have to give that back.
It managed to get out of a hefty contract (three years for $105.3 million) for Green that has potential to age poorly.
And of course, despite attaching five second-round picks to their outgoing side of the deal, the Rockets still have plenty of assets and contracts to make more deals between now and February.
Downside here is almost impossible to find.
Phoenix Suns: C-
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The Suns under Mat Ishbia, who took over the team in February of 2023, just before their own KD trade, could hold a seminar on how to completely eradicate your own title contender in just a few short years.
In 2021, Phoenix was in the Finals with a roster that included Chris Paul, Devin Booker, Deandre Ayton, Cameron Johnson and Mikal Bridges. Outside of CP3, everyone in that starting five was 24 or younger.
Now, every single player but Booker from that team is gone. Paul was part of the disastrous Bradley Beal trade. Bridges and Johnson were both required to get KD. Draft capital was sent out in both of those deals.
And though Phoenix recouped some picks in Sunday's deal, it's still light on assets, heavy on payroll and entering the offseason without a starting-caliber point guard, without a starting-caliber center and with three shoot-first guards who need the ball to be effective.
Barring further trades (the Suns are signaling that they want to keep Green, and they'd have a whale of a time moving Beal, even if they wanted to), Booker, Beal and Green will almost certainly have to share the floor in 2025-26. And that trio could turn a "your turn, my turn" offense into something closer to the 2013-14 San Antonio Spurs' "beautiful game" offense.
Of course, the Suns may deserve a bit more generous grading curve. The return suggests other teams may not have been willing to part with unprotected first-rounders for KD. And in that case, getting one of their own back is a good thing.
With so many firsts around the league already spoken of through other deals, the five second-rounders Phoenix got could prove valuable, too.
And of course, even if the Suns are saying Green is a long-term piece right now, there's always a chance he fetches more assets down the road.
But right now, a Phoenix team that felt hopelessly stuck before this deal barely budged after making it.
Kevin Durant: A
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There will be those who use this latest trade as another way to pick at Durant's increasingly complicated legacy. This is his fifth team (and fourth in the last six years). And things soured in pretty startling fashion with the Golden State Warriors, Brooklyn Nets and Suns.
But in strictly basketball terms, this deal is much different for Durant than the moves to Brooklyn and Phoenix were.
Both of those teams had to part with significant talent and/or assets to either clear the books for KD or acquire him in a trade. That's not even close to what's happening here.
It wouldn't be crazy to rank Green behind all of Sengun, Thompson, Smith, Sheppard and Whitmore in terms of long-term trade value. Houston kept them all to be the supporting cast for its new scoring star.
And the Rockets' best player, which is still Sengun, is a playmaking 5 who will be eager to get KD the ball in positions to score. Wings like Thompson, Smith and Tari Eason will cover for some of the athleticism KD has lost as he nears 40.
Of all the landing spots that were rumored for Durant over the last several weeks, Houston always made the most sense. And now that we know what the Rockets had to give up to get him, this almost feels like a no-brainer for both the team and the player.
Durant is headed to a title contender that looks tailor-made to accentuate his strengths and mask his flaws.
