The Phoenix Suns become a much different team than the end of the 2024-25 season with a terrible 36 victories, and the departure of Kevin Durant is a big reason for that. Although the Suns also waved goodbye to Bradley Beal – and when buying him they could not wait to end that partnership quickly enough – Durant Learing indicated the real end of this era.
It is now on the Front Office to build another winner around Devin Booker, and the latest news from Jonathan Kuminga’s camp did not help in that respect. One of the most important reasons why Kuminga – just like Jimmy Butler would like to call the Valley -House, is because owner Mat Ishbia would pay him what he wants to play there. The same would also apply to Durant.
Houston Rockets will probably not give a huge expansion.
Tim McMahon wax on The Hope Collective Podcast now that many of the movements have taken place outside of season, and he revealed that his sources in Houston have indicated that durant will not get as much money if he could certainly be elsewhere with an extension with the rockets. From the perspective of the franchise this makes sense, they must remain flexible to try to fight.
It is also smart to put not a lot of money in an soon 37-year-old, an error that the Suns in the past have been guilty of too many paying aging stars to try to build a winner. But if you are durant – although he has earned a lot of money so far – that may not be what he wants to hear before he ever plays for the rockets.
He has always spoken about wanting to play basketball in the right way and hunting basketball nirvana, but all that came while he had the kind of contract that has helped so far to just increase shy half a billion dollars made in money. If durant no longer does this for the money – and if a player will think like that, then it is probably him – then that’s great.
But the reality of looking at Fred Vanvlet or Alps Sengun earns more money than you are a different proposition, and it is something he would never have had to make in Phoenix. Ishbia would have handed him a blank check and told him that he wanted to put the figure he wanted to go, and the organization would also have bought out Beal in the Beal process.
Durant remains one of the best players in the world and is seen by many as the missing piece to help the rockets reach the Western Conference Finals in the coming seasons. This is the reality of a star approaching the end of their career, but it is one that could have been avoided if durant had chosen to stay with the Suns instead.
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