We Know What The Kevin Durant Trade Will Be…

We Know What The Kevin Durant Trade Will Be…

the Kevin Durant raid is happening soon and there’s a lot of momentum towards him ending up in San Antonio with a ton of reports linking KD and the Spurs as they try to continue to build a competitive team around Victor Weman you might be wondering why the Spurs why are they such a heavy favorite to land Durant right now well first and foremost it’s really easy to put together multiple trade packages from San Antonio that make a lot of sense for Phoenix they have a bunch of flexibility they have a bunch of contracts that work you can put together four five six different scenarios that all I think would be at least close to enough for the Suns to consider trading Kevin Durant a really nice combination of picks young players contracts it’s just easy to find a KD to the Spurs trade not to mention the fact that Durant’s preference at this point by reports at least seems to be the San Antonio Spurs we’ve talked in the past about teams like Houston and Minnesota but right now it seems like he wants to go play with Victor Wmanyama just like Darren Fox did at the trade deadline then there’s a lot of momentum almost all the momentum towards KD becoming a Spur and the other part of this of course is the fact that the Spurs actually want him i’m not convinced that there’s other teams around the league that maybe are being mentioned as KD destinations i’m not convinced that they actually are all that excited about adding Kevin Rand that might be surprising considering the prestige that Kevin Ran’s name brings but at this point in his career 37 years old one year left on his deal some of the injury issues that he’s had how bad Phoenix was last year i don’t think the trade market I’ve talked about this in previous videos i don’t think the KD trade market was going to be as robust as maybe people would have expected it to be and so the fact that he wants to go to San Antonio reportedly the Spurs want him reportedly and it’s pretty easy to put together a trade all leads towards KD and the Spurs being the most likely outcome at this point some of those other teams can certainly still make a push i’ve seen Minnesota as kind of like a darkhorse contender here we’ve talked about trade packages for Minnesota and Kevin Rant in the past and of course Houston is a team that’s been at the top of the list as well but I think what’s cooling that off is I don’t think Houston’s all that excited about adding Durant a guy that doesn’t really fit their timeline a guy that maybe they don’t see as a huge impact player on winning anymore at this point in his career and they’d rather wait for Giannis or someone else or just run it back next year with the same team rather than investing future assets in Durant and this pivot towards San Antonio would make sense if that was the case if Houston didn’t really want Kevin Durant or didn’t want to give up a ton in exchange because first and foremost the Suns would like to trade with Houston to get some of their picks back if that’s not a possibility then they are now pivoting to the Spurs it looks like this going to be happening relatively soon with the draft just about two weeks away and certainly the draft is kind of the end point of this i would expect Kevin Ray to get traded by at least the draft if not earlier and I can almost guarantee you that if Kevin Ray gets traded to the San Antonio Spurs one of these next trades is going to be what the deal is going to look like there’s three different kind of levels of return for the Suns they can expect and we’re going to go through them from least to most return for the Suns level one the lowest amount I could actually expect the Suns to accept in exchange for Kevin Durant would be Harrison Barnes Kelvin Johnson essentially those guys are just contracts they’re going to come up in these other trades as well plus Jeremy Sohan in the 14th overall pick in the draft that would give the Suns a pretty interesting complimentary piece and Sohan to continue to develop they’d get a late lottery pick in this draft as well and they’re not taking on any long-term salary in exchange for Durant maybe they can flip Barnes elsewhere maybe they can flip Kell Johnson elsewhere maybe those guys can just help them next year around Devon Booker being nice complimentary players for them and don’t freak out cuz like I said this is the lowest level of value you can expect if you’re a Suns fan in my opinion but if it really got bad enough that Houston just wasn’t all that involved and Minnesota wasn’t all that involved maybe this is what San Antonio would actually be able to offer in exchange for Durant imagine that if this was the line that the Spurs drew that the Suns would really go around and look and tell these other teams tell Houston tell Minnesota “Hey this is what our trade is in exchange for Durant from the Spurs.” Like if you guys can beat this you can have him right now but that’s just level one level two is probably where we’re going to end up based off all these reports i think this is the most likely Kevin Durant to the Spurs trade it’s Deon Vel it’s Harrison Barnes as a contract and the 14th pick in this draft vel is a guy that I’ve talked about in previous videos that I would like to keep if I was the Spurs I’d really like to try and push for a scenario in which you have KD Fox Steph Castle Devin Vel and Victor Wemanyama that group of five players I think would be really good would push for 50 wins next year if everybody’s healthy and it’s just a really interesting combination and they need the spacing and the scoring that Deon Vel provides but I can understand the Suns being like “Hey we got to get something back here as a young player that isn’t Jeremy Sohan like this guy’s still Kevin Durant it’s not like you’re trading for a 45-year-old like he’s still really going to be able to help your team we need a little bit more value and so Vel plus Barnes plus that late lottery pick makes a lot of sense for a couple of different reasons it gives them that kind of core piece and Vel that can pair alongside Deon Booker i know people are going to say “Oh they’re both shooting guards.” I’m not really all that worried about positional flexibility here for the Suns those two guys can play together they both can score and they can shoot like I’m not worried about Deon Booker and Deon Vel’s kind of combination in the back court or semi- backourt i’m not worried about that then you get the 14th pick and that I think is a pretty realistic return for both sides in exchange for Durant and then the last level would be I think an overpay for San Antonio and I’d be extremely surprised if it gets to this point for the Suns but maybe this is just the level of aggression that the Spurs have in trying to get Durant this would be the most that I would expect the Suns to be able to get in exchange for KD debell Harrison Barnes Jeremy Sohan the 14th pick in the draft and a future 2027 Atlanta first maybe it’s protected maybe it’s unprotected but that would be the construction that I think is the maximum amount you can expect if you are a Suns fan you get Fel you get some future picks you get Sohan to try and build around and the Spurs are still looking at the situation saying they’ve got all their future picks they’ve still got Fox Castle Durant and Webyama they’ve got a bunch of flexibility moving forward to be able to add to that they signed KD to an extension and that’s their core and that’s the thing that really works about this if you’re the Spurs is you can continue to go up in value and in return for the Suns and you still have a bunch of pieces you still have a bunch of picks and plenty of opportunity to continue to build around Victor Wmanyama if I had to guess I would say that that second trade is the most likely outcome but at this point we have a decent level of certainty of what the Durant trade is going to look like we know almost for a fact i would go so far as to say it’s a 100% certainty that the second overall pick in the draft is not getting traded in a Kevin Durant trade maybe something happens with Giannis and that completely changes things maybe that’s why it hasn’t happened yet cuz the Spurs are waiting to see if Giannis becomes available and they’d rather get him than Durant but the second overall pick is not going to end up in Phoenix as a result of a Kevin Durant trade at least I would be shocked like I said it’s I think it’s an almost 100% certainty that that won’t be involved now if it was up to me if I was in the position that the Spurs are in right now I would really try and push for that first trade option i would really like to keep Deon Vauel i know that Spurs fans and people in general aren’t super high on him i still think he’s really good i think he’s going to be a nice complimentary piece for them had a weird year last year coming back from an injury at the beginning of the season i think he’s good and if you can get that core group of five players Velcyama KD and Dearan Fox that group together is really cool and if down the road you want to add somebody else you have that contract of Devon Vel rather than getting rid of all your contracts now I really like that combination personally but I would be willing to trade Vel Barnes in a first in exchange for KD although I wouldn’t be all that excited about it because I’m just lower on what KD brings at this point i understand the name value i understand that he still had a really good scoring season last year but there’s only so many seasons in a row you can see of Durant not being all that happy in his situation and his team really not performing all that well whether it be in the regular season or the postseason him dealing with injury issues him being 37 years old him needing a contract extension that is going to be sizable which is a massive part of this i’m just a little bit more down I think on the overall value and the overall return that I would give up in exchange for Kevin Durant but at the end of the day it seems like it’s going to be San Antonio it seems like it’s going to be one of these three deals and I can’t wait to see what it’s going to look like if this is how it happens and we’ve got KD and Victor Wemana together in the front court and it seems like right now this is going to be domino number one of a very exciting and a very interesting NBA offseason trade

The Kevin Durant trade is happening soon AND there is a lot of momentum towards him ending up in San Antonio – with a ton of reports linking KD and the Spurs as they try and continue to build a competitive team around Victor Wembanyama.

#durant #kevindurant #kevinduranttrade