Holy smokes! A huge NBA trade happened and it hasn't left me dazed and confused. The Houston Rockets acquired Kevin Durant in exchange for Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, the No. 10 overall pick in Wednesday's draft and five second-rounders.
The Phoenix Suns finally admitted everything they did after reaching the NBA finals back in 2021 was flat out stupid. The got rid of their young defensive minded center in Deandre Ayton. They waived goodbye to veteran point guard Chris Paul. And they completely gutted their best attribute which was young depth when they traded Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson, multiple first-round picks (2023, 2025, 2027 and 2029) for Kevin Durant. OK. Pairing Devin Booker and Durant could have been cool. There is only 1 basketball, but they probably could have shared... and then they brought in the most over-payed player in the NBA Bradley Beal in exchange for Chris Paul, Landry Shamet, and Bilal Coulibaly (the No. 7 pick), and future second-round picks. The worst part of all of this is that everyone outside of Phoenix knew those three guys could not possibly get enough touches. But everyone had to have a big three. What did that get the Suns... nothing.
But today the NBA world actually got a little more normal. Instead of a huge overpay like four first round picks for Rudy freaking Gobert, or a huge underpay of Luka Doncic for... almost nothing, we actually had a trade that made sense for both teams.
Don't get me wrong, the Houston Rockets absolutely won this trade. But when you screw up as bad as the Suns did, you aren't going to get a fair trade. The Suns had to get rid of Durant. he's old, makes a ton of money and did not fit the rebuild the Suns foolishly forced themselves into. They should have expected to get pennies on the dollar... and yet they did far better than that. They basically looked at the team best positioned to trade for Durant and got the third best player on their team, Green, who also happens to be only 23 years old. They also got the number 10 pick iin this years draft which is not shabby. Dillon Brooks is fine but I doubt he will stay on the Suns. The five number two draft picks seems absurd but they actually have value now as those contracts are a cheap way to fill out the end of your bench.
Amen Thompson and Durant on the same team is going to be a sight to see!
And the Rockets got exactly what they needed. They are a deep team who was missing a killer. Even at the age of 36, The Slim Reaper is just that. He is someone they can give the ball to at the end of the game and he will make a shot. The rockets just made themselves significantly better without giving up all their depth. That seems like a very hard thing to do these days. I honestly can't wait to see OKC and Houston square off next year. Oh and as an added piece of trivia, the old OKC trio of Harden, Westbrook and Durant have all now been on the Rockets. I will always wonder what would have been if the Thunder traded Westbrook instead of Harden...
So what do you think of this trade?