7-Team NBA Trade Details Revealed from Historic Kevin Durant, Rockets Deal
The massive seven-team trade that will include Kevin Durant and Clint Capela going to Houston is now agreed upon by the teams involved, with include the aforementioned Rockets alongside the Phoenix Suns, Atlanta Hawks, Brooklyn Nets, Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers and Minnesota Timberwolves.
ESPN's Shams Charania offered the full details:
It is officially the largest trade in NBA history, at least from the perspective of the total teams involved.
The Durant aspect of this seven-team mega deal is obviously the headliner, giving the Rockets an impressive core group of him, Alperen Şengün, Amen Thompson, Jabari Smith Jr. and Fred VanVleet, along with a lot of depth.
That is a group that will be expected to land in the upper echelon of the Western Conference, alongside the Oklahoma City Thunder and Denver Nuggets. One of Houston's biggest issues during last season's early playoff exit was the lack of a true No. 1 option on offense—Durant will rectify that concern.
Fred Katz of The Athletic also noted that Houston's signing of Dorian Finney-Smith isn't expected to get folded into the mega deal as a sign-and-trade transaction with the Lakers. As he wrote, "Because Capela will come to Houston in a sign-and-trade and thus isn’t going into the midlevel exception, the Rockets can use the MLE to sign Finney-Smith straight up. And why would they choose to send a player or draft pick to the Lakers when they don't have to?"
The Suns, meanwhile, brought back Jalen Green as the headliner in the seven-team trade, creating an odd trio of combo guards on the team's roster alongside Devin Booker and Bradley Beal. Minus a buyout or waive-and-stretch agreement (Beal would have to give up some owed money to make the latter work), the Suns are going to have a very interesting backcourt next season.
All in all, this offseason has been pretty wild, mostly down to the number of trades we've seen. It's only fitting that a record-setting number of teams would agree to one gigantic trade during the rest of that chaos.
