The Kevin Durant trade makes Houston TITLE FAVORITES ⁉️👀 + Summer League updates | NBA Today

The Kevin Durant trade makes Houston TITLE FAVORITES ⁉️👀 + Summer League updates | NBA Today

Kevin Durant will officially wear number seven for Houston after the league record 17 team trade was official over the weekend. Whoever had to do that bookkeeping, I hope you get a little vacation. The Rockets, the Suns, the Wolves, the Warriors, the Hawks, the Nets, and the Lakers. They were all involved in the blockbuster deal that ended up with six players, the draft rights to seven 2025 picks, seven future picks, $3.3 million in total cash getting swapped. Now that the dust has settled though, KD, he jumped onto social media and he posted in part this. My time in Phoenix has come to an end. All of these stops along the journey, they’ve really impacted me in a positive way. It’s all a family that I’m grateful to be a part of no matter what. I truly believe this NBA is one big community. Much love to Arizona. Houston can’t wait. And Rockets general manager Raphael Stone, he spoke yesterday about what KD brings to Htown. For me, he’s Kevin Durant, you know. I think I think he’s just he’s really good. He’s super efficient. He had a great year last year. So, I mean, he’s obviously not um he’s not 30 anymore, but he hasn’t really fallen off. and we just think uh yeah, we think he has a chance to really be impactful for us. Our goal is definitely to win a championship, but it I don’t know about the window opening or closing or whatever else. I think it’s way too early to to talk about championships other than for obvious reasons that’s that’s our goal. I’m excited to see Houston have KD, but I get even more excited when I get to say howdy to our NBA reporter Tim McMahon. Howdy, partner. Tim, we just heard GM Raphael Stone. He said it’s way too early to talk about championships. But Kevin Durant, he’s going to be 37 when the season gets underway. So, do the Rockets really believe this or is this a little bit of the OKC didn’t say the word championship at their media day last season? Howdy, Malikica. Listen, it’s way too early. Oh, you like that. It’s way too early for Rafll Stone to sit up there at a press conference and pound his chest and plan a championship parade. This trade obviously was made to open up a potential championship window for the Houston Rockets. This is a team that was a two seed last year despite being mediocre at best offensively, despite having a glaring void when it came to that go-to perimeter score. Jaylen Green, talented, but he was consistently inconsistent flashes of brilliance, but peaks and valleys. Kevin Durant, you know who he is. He has been a certified bucket since you were in elementary school, Malikica. He’s still one of the most efficient volume scorers that we’ve ever seen in this game. They’re still they’re still big. They’re still tough. They’re still deep. They’re going to be a dominant rebounding team, an elite defensive team. And now they have a Hall of Famer instead of a hope he can as the go-to guy. Not a hope. Yes, the Rockets are realistic championship contenders with this trade of Kevin Durant. And that’s the whole reason the deal happened. I hope he can as a noun McMahon is pretty wild. Absolutely. Thank you for that. Quite effective. Look, I have a ton of respect for leadership needing to be patient and strike all the right notes. But to me, this sounded like scare money don’t make no money. To your point, it is obvious what this team is trying to do right now. And I think the way you maybe dance around it artfully if you want to do the PR thing is you look at the steps Kevin Durant has taken in his career. And it has never not been about putting a team in the best position to win. And then of course you do the dance about the rest of our team and trusting Emodoka and how we’re going to grow this season and put our best foot forward. But yeah, everybody know what time it is when you add this guy to a team that was number two in the West. And I actually think that being bold and affirming what you’re trying to do on a daily basis, particularly for those young guys, helps you stay locked in on the prize. But OKC just did that and it worked out for them. But they didn’t have that Kevin Durant veteran there. They didn’t have a Fred Vanle. I mean, I guess you could you could maybe put Caruso in that category, but he’s not old. He’s just older than them. 30, right? He’s just older than them. And like, so to me, this is when you go out and go get Kevin Durant, that was they had had this well chronicled decision to say, I want to keep this young team together. I want to grow. And then they lost to the Warriors in the first round. And what did they lose with? They lost with not having a go-to guy down the stretch of those games to put the ball in their hand and say, go get us a bucket. That’s really what we need. Now you have the best scorer scorer the greatest scorer in my eyes of all time on your team in Kevin Durant Brian. Yeah. So there’s some nuance here. Okay. I know that it’s hard always to see nuance. I don’t think that the Rockets looked at this situation and said now is the time we’re going to go for it, but they loved the price on Kevin Durant. They thought if we can get him for this price, we’re going to get him. Not because we think we’re only going to be contenders for the next two years. And again, there’s nuance within that. I don’t want to imply that they got him for cheap. They gave away some quality players and the number 10 draft pick, uh, Maluatch, who could end up being a really good player for Phoenix, but they really liked the price here. And so that I think has to be considered. They went and got Durant because he was the best thing they could have ever gotten for what they gave up. Um, but I also think that they have learned from Oklahoma City. Sam Prey, what did he come out and say two years ago? We’ve got to finish our breakfast. They won 57 games and had the number one overall seed. And then he was like, “Let’s talk about lunch.” So, I think Rafel is very savvy. He’s done a really good job building this team. He does not want to put parameters on it, but he also couldn’t say no to getting Kevin Durant at that value. Right. But the summer spotlight, it’s currently on top five pick Ace Bailey. He debuted after all that jazz for the Jazz in Salt Lake Summer League. And here’s how it went down against the Memphis Grizzlies here. Early in the second quarter, Jazz trail by 14. Bailey grabs a rebound, steps back out. Okay, onelegged shot. Off to a pretty good start. Ditzky kind of shot. Trail by nine here. Isaiah Collier pushes it up. Bailey, the vicious alleyoop showing off some of his athleticism that we talked so much about during the draft. And then later in the third, Bailey fighting for the rebound here and throwing it down with authority. He told us all through the draft process that rebounding is the thing he hears from his aunt and mom when he’s playing ball. And clearly he was hearing it here and also feeling it hitting the three. 18.7 rebounds in his second summer league game. And while Bailey balled out last night, it was number three pick BJ Edgecom that stole the show over the weekend in Salt Lake. The Sixers lottery pick poured in a game high 28 points highlighted by some rim rattling dunks here as well. He grabbed 10 rebounds, dished out four assists. He swatted two shots in his debut with Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. Excited here for what they’re seeing from the number three pick. Tim, you were in the building to watch both Edgecom and Bailey here. Your biggest takeaway watching those two was what? I mean, the takeaway with VJ Edgecom is this guy is going to step into the NBA as an elite athlete even by NBA standards. And he didn’t have the most productive year Baylor where the floors all clogged up. But if you watched him with the Bahamas, where he was playing on a team with DeAndre Aton, with Eric Gordon, with Buddy Heel, the team that came one win away from that itty bitty Islands first Olympic bid. There were times where he was the best player on that team where he was the guy who’s getting crunchtime shots. He’s not scared of the moment. And you talk about a turbo button, the ability to elevate, he can get to his spots, he can get shots when he wants. He’s really impressive. Listen, when I was there Saturday night, it was not like an overwhelming performance by Ace Bailey. He struggled offensively. Eight points on three of 13 shooting, but the Jazz were pleased by what they saw. And that’s because he competed. He played hard defensively. You could see 68 210. It was Will Hardy told me, NBA athlete, NBA body, you know, closing big gaps defensively, competing rebounding. He sat for six minutes of crunch time, came back in the game, and got the biggest uh the biggest board of the game. He was considered kind of painted as a diva during the pre-draft process. That has not been the guy they’ve seen since he showed up to Salt Lake City. Yeah, they’re seeing sort of all of the things that we knew would make him such an asset in the NBA. So, we’ve seen a couple of the top picks here. We will have to wait though until Thursday to see the number one pick, Cooper Flag, make his summer league debut. That’ll be out in Vegas. But earlier today, he spoke at Mav’s practice. I think, you know, coach SH trusted me a lot last year and I I handled it a lot. You know, I didn’t bring it up with some, but you know, on the half court, I handled it a lot and, you know, set up a lot of different actions. So, um, I think it’s something I can do at a high level. So, I’m excited to just, you know, experiment and do some new things. He’s experimenting. He’s doing some new things. He’s keeping the goatee. Tim, how do you see Flag adapting with the Mavs here? Well, listen. Jason Kidd’s going to treat Cooper Flag a lot like he did Giannis Anakoupo when Jay Kidd got to Milwaukee and put the ball in Giannis’ hands and basically said, “Spread your wings. Show us what you can do and the things you can’t do. Let let you know, let’s jump over those hurdles. Let’s get past those things. Let’s test you and uh and and really grow.” And it’s different circumstances. That Milwaukee team was young. they were in a rebuild where Cooper Flag obviously joins a a very veteranheavy uh Dallas Mavericks team, a team with some future Hall of Famers. Of course, one of those future Hall of Famers, Kyrie Irving, recovering from a torn ACL. He’s not going to play for at least the first half of the season. So, there is a void in terms of facilitating playmaking. Jason Kidd wants to really give Cooper Flag a chance to prove that he can help fill that void, if not be the primary guy as their playmaker from the get-go. And that’s really what this summer league is going to be about for Cooper Flag and the Mavericks. We get to see Cooper on Thursday in Las Vegas right here on ESPN taking on the Los Angeles Lakers and Bronny James. It may just be July, Tim, but there is plenty of action to catch up on. So, let’s check out NBA Today’s Big Three. Our highlights here from around the association and more. We’re going to start with Bronny James. Speaking of the Lakers taking on the Heat in the California Summer League Classic here, this is early in the first quarter. Watch this, Monica. Bronny. Okay. His dad there. Yeah, this is a great finish. Terrific display of athleticism, reading the defense, had the advantage, full control. He would end up with 10 points in that game. And then coming in at number two here, Ramona Judah Mint, Salt Lake City league. The Thunder taking on the 76ers here early in the first quarter. Judah Mint with the crossover. He got to make that. He does. We got to see that crossover one more time. Goodness, man. Slide to the left. He had 21 points in this one. The Thunder did go on to win the game, however, 89-76. And then at number one, a potential future summer participant one day. Maybe we got Chef Cannon Curry. He’s the young chef. You see this bottle flip? Let’s watch. Okay. He just turns into his dad. Oh, he walked away. He did a little walk away. If he does a shimmy, I’m going to Let’s see the night night. Come on. Let’s do the night night. Everyone is impressed. So cute. And his dad is just like, I mean, I guess he gets it from his pops. Look at this. Oh.

On NBA Today, Brian Windhorst, Tim MacMahon, Monica McNutt and Ramona Shelbourne join Malika Andrews to discuss the historic 7-team deal that sent Kevin Durant to the Houston Rockets and if he makes them a championship contender. Then, Tim breaks down the rookies Ace Bailey and VJ Edgemcombe’s impressive showing in the Summer League and how Cooper Flagg will adapt to playing in Dallas.

0:00 Historic 7-team trade sends KD to Houston
1:45 Is it too early to discuss championship for Rockets?
5:45 Ace Bailey’s summer league performance
6:31 VJ Edgecombe’s summer league performance
8:50 How is Cooper Flagg adapting to the Mavericks?

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