Kevin Durant FINALLY Admits It, Trade To Heat Coming?

Kevin Durant FINALLY Admits It, Trade To Heat Coming?

Kevin Durant, one of the biggest names on the trade market this summer, almost certain to be on his way out of Phoenix. We’ve got another team that’s in the mix to land him. But first, KD firing back at LeBron James fans on social media explaining why he made that controversial jump to the Golden State Warriors. I’m Trevor Lane. This is the Basketball Bulletin. Right now, about 70% of you out there, that’s right, you out there are not subscribed to the channel. Make sure you subscribe right here. It’s free. doesn’t cost you anything. And we’re going to have a ton of stuff coming up this off season. Trades, free agency, the draft, all of that. Big stuff coming up around the NBA. So, hit that subscribe button and turn on notifications. All right, let’s check this out. So, KD was criticized on social media, as he’s known for doing, he got into the mix because this is what KD does. He doesn’t he doesn’t refrain from hopping in on X and arguing with people. So this person said, “F you, bro, for ruining what would have been a dynasty in Cleveland.” KD responds and said, “I rejoice every morning that it didn’t happen.” Him jumping to the Golden State Warriors probably did prevent the Cavs from winning multiple titles. And this LeBron fan came back and said, “We rejoice every morning that karma’s got you in a chokeold. Your legacy is forever ruined and your failures keep piling up.” Kevin Durant then said, “Sure, but history won’t ever change regardless, and that hurts you.” Again, KD not above going back and forth with some people on social media. This person even calls him out saying, “You snaked OKC just to keep the Cavs from running it up.” And KD said, “I love that you’ll be mad forever.” So KD again infamously jumping to the Golden State Warriors after losing to the Warriors in the playoffs. So a lot of people didn’t take kindly to that. Obviously, a lot of people still very, very mad about what Kevin Durant did. Then you see what happened here. The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Warriors. The Warriors beat the C. Four straight years, by the way. God, that was brutal for the NBA. Four straight years of the same damn finals matchup. Cavs Warriors. Four straight years. God, that sucked. Uh, Golden State Warriors, Cleveland Cavaliers in the finals. The Cavs got the win and then KD made the jump. That was the 73 win Warriors and then KD joined that team and so a lot of people were not respecting Kevin Durant because his team had just gotten ousted. His OKC team had just gotten ousted by Golden State. Golden State then came up short in the playoffs and then KD used that as his opportunity after the Warriors lost to the Cavs in the finals to jump over to the Warriors. Remember that was when the cap went way up suddenly and so a team like the Warriors suddenly had max cap space. So they got KD and then they win the next two titles. Golden State did. Now, they lost the next season after that. Uh, that was when KD got injured. So, you look at that. That’s five straight years of the Warriors being in the finals. And so, Kevin Durant got a lot of criticism and I think to some degree it’s justified for making the jump to Golden State. And here’s the problem. You know, a lot of people want to compare it to LeBron James and going to the Miami Heat. And LeBron got a lot of flack for that. And understandably so. line look at it go well yeah of course he got flack for that for signing up with Chris Bosch and Dwayne Wade it was seen as anti-competitive what LeBron did again hindsight did he get too much yeah maybe a bit but the real mistake from LeBron was that he misinterpreted how things were going to be perceived LeBron thought that everybody was going to be cheering for him for going and teaming up with Wade and Bosch and winning championships in Miami he thought he was going to get a bunch of fans from doing that that people would be behind him they’d be understanding Instead, he was the villain in the NBA, particularly that season. A lot of booze around the league for him because people took it as anti-competitive what LeBron did. But the problem with what Kevin Durant did was that there was no misunderstanding. LeBron thought he was going to get cheered for and was surprised when he found out that that’s not the way people were perceiving what he was doing. That was a mistake on his part. Kevin Durant already had the example that had been set by LeBron James. He knew exactly what the reaction was going to be and yet he did it anyway. He still made the jump to the Golden State Warriors. And in some way, you could say, well, hey, at least he he did what he wanted to do. And he didn’t care about what other people were going to think about him. Obviously, he didn’t care what other people were going to think about him because people are still upset about it today. Years later, what we’re almost a decade later, and people are still upset about it right now. I mean, here’s K KD with somebody telling him that his legacy is going to mean nothing, which I don’t agree with. I don’t think his legacy means nothing just because he signed up with the Golden State Warriors. But Kevin Durant said it means nothing. We live and we die and we and people move on with life. After a while, nobody will remember anything from this era. It’s just life. Yeah, maybe there’s some truth to that. I mean, how much do we remember sports accomplishments from say uh the the turn of the century into the the 1900s? Not not a lot, right? Not a lot. So, at some point is is there some truth to that? Yeah, sure. Nothing lasts forever. That’s that’s the way that it goes. But it it’s funny that Kevin Durant can deflect all of that. He’s just like, “Whatever.” You know, hey, you don’t you don’t like my legacy. You think my legacy is tarnished? That’s fine. That’s that’s you. Um he also said a simple nope to being criticized for arguing with fans on Twitter, saying, “Bro, you’re pushing 40 arguing with fans on Twitter. You don’t have anything better to do than go back and forth about an idiotic decision you made 9 years ago.” And KD just says, “Nope.” I don’t know. Like I we I think criticism of KD for what he did and everything is is fair. Did he win championships? Yes. He was finals MVP both those years. Obviously, he contributed in a significant and very meaningful way to the Golden State Warriors. I don’t think that in any way invalidates the championships that he won. If we want to put an asterisk by it and say, “Well, but he jumped to a team that was already good.” That’s fine. That’s fine. We can be critical of that. But I like that KD is just unabashedly just like, “Nope, doesn’t bother me at all. No big deal. I’ll argue with people on X. No problem. Say whatever you want about me. Um I don’t know. There there’s to me that’s a little bit endearing just because he’s so matterof fact about how little it actually bothers him that people are upset about this. But the one thing that we do know for sure with Kevin Durant, regardless of whether or not you agreed with his decision to join the Golden State Warriors, is that KD is one of the biggest names out there on the trade market. And we had this come out today about Durant said uh this is from Mark Stein. The Heat are frequently forecasted as a team along with Minnesota expected to show trade interest this offseason in Kevin Durant. What sort of clues Riley drops at his about his team building approach? Well, Pat Riley did today for the Miami Heat. Paraphrasing, but effectively say, “Yeah, we’re not bringing this team back next year. It’s not going to be the same group. There’s going to be changes.” So, could the Heat get into the mix for Kevin Durant? know that there’s a number of teams that are already tied to them. The Minnesota Timberwolves being one of them, though how far they go in the playoffs may matter. I look at the Houston Rockets, I say, “My god, the Houston Rockets, their offense is screaming for somebody that can score in the half court like Kevin Durant.” And does he fit their age timeline? No. But man, I mean, it it’s not hard to look at the Houston Rockets right now and the way they played in the playoffs and say they’re a Kevin Durant away from a a a Western Conference Finals run, maybe an NBA Finals run. They would prefer obviously to get a younger player, but I think they should absolutely be a team that’s in the mix for KD as well. But the the Miami Heat, if they’re going to go after Kevin Durant, there’s obviously some complicating factors here in terms of future draft capital, the salaries. Kevin Durant making 54.7 million uh next season, then he’s an unrestricted free agent. So, that’s a big piece to all of this. It’s not just does do the Miami Heat want Kevin Durant. I’m sure the Miami Heat do want. I’m sure a lot of teams want Kevin Durant. But a big factor in all of this is going to be what does Kevin Durant want? Does he want to go to that particular team or not? Because he’s going to hit free agency and whatever team acquires him is going to have to do something to keep him longterm if you’re going to give up the kind of assets that the Phoenix Suns are going to want in any kind of a trade. So, let’s talk about just getting there salarywise first and foremost. So, the Miami Heat, in order to make a deal work for Kevin Durant, they’re going to have to stack up some contracts if they want to really get into the mix here. And I do think Miami, given their finish this year, they’ve got a lot of incentive to make some changes. Now, when you look at their totals, they do have some first apron cap room here. They’re below that, but only 14 million. Could they trigger a hard cap at that first tier apron by taking back more money than they send out? Potentially, but remember, they’ve got some decisions to make here on this roster. when we look at uh a player well Terry Roier that’s almost entirely guaranteed so I don’t even look at that as a non-G guarantee it’s a weird guarantee on Terry Roier but you have some decisions to make in terms of some of these guys are you going to try to jettison some salary things of that nature I think Andrew Wiggins would have some value around the NBA if they wanted to open up some flexibility but other than that there’s not a lot of like team options or anything here to choose from DaVon Mitchell is a guy they’re going to have to make a decision on as well so could they trigger a first apron hard cap technically yes but they would probably prefer not to. So maybe we’re talking about a third team getting involved. So neither the Phoenix Suns nor the Miami Heat trigger a first apron hardcap by taking back more money than they send out. Remember one of those fun little rules in the new CBA. So let’s take a look at what a deal between these two sides could actually look like. We’ve got Kevin Durant at 54 million. Let’s send him to Miami. Then we’ve got I mean you could just do pretty simple. Andrew Wiggins, Terry Roier, and and off you go. And there there you’ve got something that would work. Now, again, it doesn’t really work because neither team can trigger that first tier apron hard cap plus.2 million, but that’s pretty damn close when it comes to salaries right there. If Miami uh if the Phoenix Suns were able to send out one other player in that then, and by the way, that would then trigger a hard cap at the second tier apron because you can’t aggregate salaries in a trade if you go above the second tier apron. But assuming Phoenix, they have the goal of m of staying below the second tier apron and that’s what they’re going to be able to do. You could add one more player to Kevin Durant, send that player to a third team and there you go. It would have to be a minor salary and then you’re in compliance. So maybe that’s something right there that you could build around. Now, is that really the return that Phoenix wants? Is that something Miami is willing to give up? You know, maybe you can do something uh without Wiggins. What about Nicola Yoic? Is that something that uh Phoenix would be interested in? Certainly. You know, there’s a few other young players. Kell Wear is a guy that I love. He’s he’s absolutely fantastic. Would the Miami Heat be willing to give him up? That would be something I’m sure Phoenix would be interested in. I don’t know about Miami. I’m sure Miami would like to use maybe the expiring contract of Duncan Robinson. So, there’s a few pieces you can mix and match in this kind of a deal. And then we go look at draft capital. What could the Miami Heat give up when it comes to draft capital? Well, they do have a firstround draft pick coming from Golden State this year. So, there’s something you could toss in a first round pick. Now, it’s the 20th pick in the draft, but maybe there’s something you can do there. You could take the 20th pick in the draft plus some contracts and and there you go. And that’s something you could ultimately send out. Uh, as far as their own picks, you look at Miami fairly encumbered here. Their own first round pick this year goes out. You’ve got your 2027 first round draft pick that goes out because the the Heat though, they have a pick this year, but because they don’t have their first round draft pick in 2027, and they don’t have a pick coming in, that means they can’t trade the 2026 first round pick either. They could trade the 2025 pick after it’s used, after it’s not a pick, then they could could send that out. I guess technically they could trade it right now because the 2026 pick is not spoken for, but still 2025 something to look at. They could potentially use that one. the 2027 first round pick is gone. See, they’ve already given up some of their draft capital here. But then when we get far enough into the future, you’ve got first round draft capital here starting in 2028 and then moving forward. So there is draft picks that or there are draft picks that the Miami Heat could include. If I’m Miami though, for a 37year-old Kevin Durant that is going to need a new salary and then you have the question of what are we really building our roster around? Are we going to build around Bam, Hero, and KD? And I think that’s just fine. I don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with that. That’s an interesting trio. Maybe you’ve got some concerns defensively, but I think that’s you could argue that’s at least better fit-wise than what they have in Phoenix with Booker and Beal and KD because all three of those guys struggle on the defensive side. All three of those guys are at their best when they’re scoring the basketball. Well, that might be true of Tyler Herro, but it’s not true of Bam Adabio, who’s a phenomenal year-in-ear out defensive player. He’s a guy who is always in the running for defensive player of the year. So, I actually think the fit between those three is not bad if you can get the right pieces around them. But the question is going to be, can you have enough of a team after putting those three together if you have to give up, let’s call it Duncan Robinson and Andrew Wiggins or something like that, plus a young player, maybe it’s a draft pick. And then if you’re Miami, you want to be careful you don’t give up too much because again, you’re going to be expected to give Kevin Durant a new deal this next summer. So that’s where the Miami Heat and anybody trading for KD has to be a little bit careful because of his age. You don’t want to be in a situation where you’re on the hook for long-term money to Kevin Durant who’s getting older by the year and is getting up there. But a talented player for sure. Could he help the Miami Heat? Yes. I just think Miami needs to figure out a direction in general though. They need to figure out what they are and what is it they want to be. There’s there’s a lack of of an identity. I know we talk about heat culture, but to me there’s a bit of a lack of of an identity right now in Miami as they kind of pivot into this post Jimmy Butler era. And I think this summer, whether it’s a Kevin Durant trade or not, is going to be really big for the Miami Heat to figure out who they are and who it is that they want to be. Big questions to be answered in Miami, but another team that’ll be in the mix for Kevin Durant. And oh boy, I think we’re going to have a really busy summer on the trade front around the NBA. So again, make sure you do subscribe right here to the channel. Till next time, see you and stay safe.

In this video Trevor Lane looks at Kevin Durant’s unabashed explanation for why he wanted to join the Warriors as fans of LeBron James express their anger over a dynasty ruined in Cleveland as a result, plus the Miami Heat emerge as a Durant landing spot this summer…

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