What Is Going On Between Kevin Durant & the Phoenix Suns?

What Is Going On Between Kevin Durant & the Phoenix Suns?

After being named dropped by Adrien wowski on ESPN Studio show on Christmas Day Kevin Durant responded on Instagram on Tuesday evening but we’ve also seen plenty from him on the court that we can pull from as well what is going on with Kevin Durant is anything wrong we’ll dissect it we’ll try to

Understand it on today’s episode of lockdown Suns let’s go you are locked on suns your daily Phoenix Suns podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day we are back this is lockon Phoenix Suns we are part of the lockon podcast Network I’m your host Brendan clean a

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Code lock on NBA for $20 off your first purchase more from them later on in the show but let’s recap let’s recap the past 24 hours in Kevin Durant land all right we had comments from Adrien War Janowski on ESPN Christmas Day if you remember last

Year the news drop was Harden not loving uh Harden wanting to go back to Houston right and uh that’s I guess the era we’re in with NBA media where these opportunities are are are Taken full advantage of but W said quote start with Kevin Durant you talk to people in Phoenix and

Around that organization they can feel the frustration with Durant part of that certainly is the Miss games for Bradley Beal this team was built around those three stars the underwelming whelming Supporting Cast that comes from those massive trades for Durant and Bradley Beal that really gutted the organization

Left them having to sign a lot of minimum players to fill out the payroll and then understanding they lack the assets the draft picks the trade Capital to go out and really improve this team this is something they’re going to have to manage in Phoenix with Kevin Durant

You’ve seen it before and it’s a stark reminder of how short of a window and how this team has to win big and they have to win big quickly based on how it was constructed having Kevin Durant still playing at an all-nba level and a healthy Kevin Durant there’s a lot at

Take for this organization it’s got to change soon all right now a lot of people reacted very strongly to that we have seen these types of of narratives and news Cycles form around Durant for years now in in multiple different cities and I understand why Suns fans were panicked

What I post poed while I was enjoying Christmas with family when I saw this popup was my first question is where did this come from which brings us to Durant’s response about 5 6 o’clock um Arizona time in a response to a post on the Durant highlights

Instagram page I don’t know if this comment has been deleted because I couldn’t personally verify that it was there I didn’t see it as I was trying to scroll through the original comment that Durant was responding to has been pinned by the initial Creator and obviously there screenshots of it

But it seems like he may have deleted it regardless we obviously know what he said which was quote W says somebody else feels that I’m frustrated and it turned into me being mentally checked out this is crazy EAS these people can flat out lie on my name and make is up

And you people will believe it but when my teammates and coaches speak on how I am as a teammate you ignore it LOL so back to where did this come from right that is Durant saying it did not come from him I also think when you listen to or

As I just read it the initial thing wo said it’s fairly harmless in the grand scheme of things right it’s it’s very clearly worded from the sun’s point of view they can feel the frustration from Durant they want to manage keeping the window open and being competitive because of how great he’s

Been when you really boil that down it it isn’t necessarily a negative from Durant but at the same time we know that Durant is not somebody that Adrien wowski has typically had a connection with and I know that that can be so exhausting but luckily you don’t have to

Keep track of it I’m keeping track of it for you and you don’t have to look further than last summer last summer being the summer of 20122 so two off seasons ago when the suns were first connected with Durant I know it’s been 18 months can you

Believe and if you think back to that day or really the whole Saga I should say it was very clear that W’s reporting was coming from the Nets side he has a long-standing relationship with Shawn Marx he has interviewed Marx on his podcast I believe twice WJ has

And they just seem to be connected to one another and a lot of the reporting was very clearly from Nets management side so again if that’s what’s happening here then Durant is understandable it’s understandable that he would be frustrated about the nature of how something like that gets out but again I

Don’t think that it’s necessarily a negative the most positive way to look at it is that the Suns know that he chose to come here he is playing well most of the time we’ll get to that and they it’s not an owe it to him thing but it’s more so an understanding

Of the nature of the moment that they’re in you don’t make a trade like that you don’t make a trade like the be one to bolster what you’re building around Durant and then accept being 500 to me it’s almost healthy to have a little bit of pressure to win for your

Star players it’s just kind of the reality of the modern NBA but because it’s Durant it’s going to be read into more and it’s going to be picked at more and I think that’s earned you know whether as a Suns fan as a Kevin Durant fan you like that or

Not this Saga has played out in other places and it doesn’t have to be good or bad but it is just a fact that when Durant is connected to these types of of issues it’s going to hold more weight because it has just happened before so where I come down on this

Particular side of it is that no nobody on the court or in public has expressed any frustration with Durant he’s absolutely right about that everybody seems to be of course holding him in high regard as a as a star in the league as a an incredibly talented differen maker for the roster

And by all accounts somebody who they get along with I don’t think this came from Kevin Durant or anybody in his camp but I think WJ was pretty clear about that that this came from the Sunside but if we’re being honest with ourselves the reason this got attention

The the reason that it won’t go away even after Durant’s response is that his own actions or lack thereof in the past week or two of games has spoken for itself and all you have to do is watch the Suns and there are numerous clips of these examples going around in addition

To ones that I’ve referenced on this show as they’ve happened that would tell you Durant’s not 100% content with the situation so let’s dig through what’s going on there and why that’s the much bigger concern than whatever W says next first Today’s Show brought to you by eBay Motors our partners at eBay

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Apply keeping the show rolling let’s talk through the Encore indications that we’ve been getting from Durant okay there’s a lot of Clips going around Suns the sun subreddit is in shambles I know a lot of suns fans are worried nervous anxious concerned and I don’t think it’s

Altogether unrealistic as much as I in that first segment believe that whatever wojowski said on ESPN is not fully what I would uh you know stake my concerns anxieties worries to I do think what he’s been displaying for us as we watch him in these games is cause for

Concern what I mean by that is that the body language is just not what you want you know there were at least four or five if not more times in this Dallas game where Durant did not really help at the basket there were a couple of those moments in those breakdowns

Where it’s a spaced floor Luca found Derek Lively or Derrick Jones Jr roll into the basket got them the ball at that point it’s one last layer of help before that player scores and Durant just didn’t fill that that role he just did not help and then in those clips he

Is the guy frustrated kind of looking around at other players there are many moments if you watch these games where he is uh he he’s been wearing is hard on his sleeve in a way that I’m not I don’t remember but of course I haven’t watched him every day and that’s one

Thing I want to be clear about as I’m talking through this stuff I’m trying to be as specific to what I have watched covering this team so as to not get ahead of myself so I’m probably missing things that have happened in the past and I

Might even be a little bit too focused on what’s Happening Now and not being big picture enough I’m sure depending on who you are you might be hearing either of those things with what with what I’m saying but that’s what I’m going to stick to the wearing of his heart heart on his

Sleeve to the level that he has is it it doesn’t feel familiar to me he is after Miss shots after turnovers after you know pass versus shoot decisions from role players you know it’s a phys pump or it is hanging his head and there’s not a lot of in between it it it

Has been a roller coaster there have been a lot of times including in that Dallas game where Durant is over the top with getting into it with officials debating call talking to them during timeouts not getting back on defense there have been numerous examples in the past couple of weeks with transition defense

Breakdowns where you can directly attribute it to Durant not getting back the ripple effect of him of somebody having to guard his man for him of him not being in position of the opponent taking advantage of that either attacking that mismatch or just scoring before the sun’s defense has been able to get

Set and obviously when you look again at last night’s game against Dallas you’re talking about a situation where he turned the ball over three times in the fourth quarter making uncharacteristic plays and only took 11 shots now I’m not going to misconstrue a poor performance as the same thing as it’s

Not turning the ball over is not bad body language those aren’t just I one and the same I obviously get that but these are a lot of examples of things that he is doing that are out of out of character and I think contribute to concern which brings us back off the court

Where against the Knicks and this is something that I posted about my post went around on on Twitter and I didn’t even address it on the show even even after that even after you know all Clips seemed to back up what I was sensing in the room postgame at the press

Conference not after other people seem to agree with my read on the situation because I just didn’t want to overreact I didn’t want to read too much into it it it very much felt this way which is that Durant in his comments about Jaylen Brunson scoring 50 in that game a couple

Of weeks ago went out of his way to comment on the degree to which that franchise is his right that was like the kind of key quote and then within that game how brunson’s teammates had made sure to get him the ball to emphasize him everything else and it it felt very

Direct and pointed because it it really wasn’t a direct answer to the question that he got asked and I think that’s sort of when people started to worry and you don’t say things like that without it being purposeful the next day or the next game two Sundays

Ago the Suns beat the wizards they have a great fourth quarter and Duran is over the top positive then this past week I guess you would probably characterize him as frustrated in his interviews and that’s totally reasonable but then to have it come to a head a little bit against the

Mavs in a very high-profile game where once again an opponent just dissects your defense you lose by double digits and to make key mistakes in the late in the game have inconsistent defensive effort and only take 11 shots people are going to read into that because it’s not just

Subliminal it’s not just what wo is saying it is the combination of all of these factors for many games now you know we’re going on probably close to 10 games where these things have cropped up dating back to the Warriors game I would say maybe maybe you go the Nets game all

Right which would be three five six games if you include the Nets game through the Mavs game where the wheels have started to fall off and Durant does not seem to be in tune or content with the situation and that’s again reasonable but I think the reason a lot

Of fans are being are bothered if I’m being honest and why a lot of people in the media or wherever General NBA fans get kind of tired out by this whole situation is it’s Durant’s responsibility to get the team out of this type of situation right it has to be it has to

Be for a lot of reasons we’ll dig into what those are and how we can look forward from this moment in time next first Today’s Show brought to you by game time the best place to buy a ticket to any sports theater or comedy event with killer last

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Locked on NBA for $20 off download game time today last minute tickets lowest price guaranteed all right we’re keeping it rolling here closing it out actually we should say right and as I was saying to close out the last segment the reason that Suns fans and NBA

Fans get so bothered when they hear a report like woes about Durant even if it’s not fully as Extreme as it might sound or or the headline might look or when they see Durant’s body language in some of these games or his comments at press conferences the reason it’s so

Bothersome to hear about pressure or discontentment or see somebody wear his heart on his sleeve and be so volatile is that you give up what you gave up you give up what the sons gave up so that Durant himself removes those concerns so the idea that Durant

Is kind of giving into those concerns at times and that there is a media pressure kind of mounting behind it it tires fans out because what you’re told when you acquire when your team acquires Kevin Durant is that all your worries are gone and that’s a lot of pressure for a great

Player to deal with but it’s unfortunately the pressure that all great players across all sports deal with right the Denver Broncos trade for pton Manning hey win us a Super Bowl bro you know it’s it’s like show otan gets to the Dodgers hey we only won one

World Series and it was in a 60- win 60 Game season can you give us the real thing and stop having us embarrass ourselves in the playoffs every year hey I’m a new owner Matt ishia our team lost in the finals and then got embarrassed in the second round of the

Playoffs of next year can you fix that for us and the answer kind of has to be yes you know one because that’s just the standard that a a top 15 top 20 top 10 whatever you think he is all-time Talent alltime career earns he’s earned that pressure

And that standard but it’s also by nature of of again what it takes to get that player in the building especially in the case of Durant who chose to go about things this way right because if you remember he signed an extension in 2021 that kicked in in

2022 that was for four years so now he is in year two of that four-year extension but if he had not signed that extension he would have become a free agent in the summer of 2022 right so the same summer I I believe I have this correct the years aren’t super

Important the point is he would have become a free agent and could have gone anywhere that’s that’s what happened when he went to Golden State that team there would never would have been a concern about you know how to build out the roster is there enough or any of those things because

They didn’t have to trade for him right so when you’re that good and you choose to sign an extension with a team that you have reservations about even if you couldn’t have seen all of it coming what happens is the team that gets you has to trade male bridges for you has to

Trade cam Johnson for you and this part of why I’m I’m harping on it is this was some of the Grapevine rumor stuff that you were reading last summer that I was covering on this show last summer where by last summer I mean 2022 when he made

The trade request and then ended up going back to Brooklyn where Durant seemed to be kind of surprised at how the market turned out where teams were either very hesitant to give up so much to get him or as he realized what it would look like when he landed there he

Kind of bed at it you know it’s the Carmelo Anthony to the Knicks situation where they’re a very fun interesting team with the guys that they had and then they trade for Melo all those guys go to Denver galinari and everybody else and suddenly the Knicks don’t have

Enough to win a title around Melo and it takes them two or three years before they finally have their best season of the Mello era it’s kind of what we’re seeing here yeah it’s Booker it’s whatever you can get for Aon it’s whatever you can get for Chris Paul and it’s beyond that

A bunch of minimum players this team did not have blue chip prospects this team did not have rookies or you know guys like that that they could deal so they had to deal their contributors their veteran contributor Bridges Johnson Etc Crowder that’s the bed that Durant made

For himself and I think he knows that I obviously it’s not that difficult to follow but it does seem to have surprised him a little bit as this Saga has played out and it is definitely why Sun’s fans are frustrated hey yeah this sucks it’s

Hard the roster is in a is in a weird spot but I’m a fan right that’s what a lot of people are thinking I’m I’m sure that’s what a lot of you are thinking I’m not the person who has to care about that and to have the type of demonstrations

We’ve been seeing on the court and in press conferences in spite of all that I’m 100% sympathetic to the frustration that fans are feeling as a result of that you do all this stuff you make all these moves you finally get what is supposed to deliver success and that

Thing that player that trade that series of moves that was supposed to deliver success is manifested is symbolized in bad Body Language by that Superstar player who is supposed to be the head of the snake the spear that leads the way for all the things the tip of the spear

That is supposed to lead the way for all the things that this franchise wants to achieve that sucks where does it go from here it has to be him it has to be the top of this thing it cannot be bickering with referees it cannot be inconsistent defensive effort it cannot

Be you know tough love and whatever with guys that can’t handle that if this season is going to go anywhere it’s not going to just be because Bradley Beal comes back these types of distractions whether they’re legitimate who they came from whether it’s fully the thing that’s

Causing the problems or not they’re not helping it’s not helping the way that we’re seeing Durant behave on the court it’s not helping the way that he’s commenting on things in the media sometimes it’s not helping that wherever the the W report came from it’s not

Helping that it came out so the way forward is fix what’s going on on the court which as I mentioned on Tuesday’s episode recapping the Dallas game I do think there’s been progress made continue down that route and cut the distractions out because the truth of W’s report the part of it that’s

Absolutely a fact no matter anything else you could say is that there’s extreme pressure this window is not big the financial uh curtain is coming down on this team and age injuries finances everything the churn of these one-year deals that are going to just mean a whole new roster every

Season none of that’s going to get easier it has to happen soon if not now that’ll wrap us us up for the day stay tuned on Twitter and on the show for an announcement about some news related to the show this week and into next week excited to unveil a big change a

Big opportunity a big hopefully Improvement for you as a listener coming on locked on sun soon so stay tuned for that be back on Wednesday night after the buzzer of suns Rockets to recap that game if see if the Suns can get back in the wind column check your feed for that

As soon as the game ends and I will talk to you guys then

Kevin Durant denied an ESPN report about his frustration with the Phoenix Suns, but his body language tells a different story.

Brendon Kleen of @justbasketballfans breaks down the KD news cycle, what his words and actions really tell us, why Suns fans have a right to be frustrated, and what happens from here.

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