NBA TODAY | Houston Rockets won’t going “all in” on Kevin Durant contract extension – Tim MacMahon

NBA TODAY | Houston Rockets won’t going “all in” on Kevin Durant contract extension – Tim MacMahon

Standing 6′ 10 from the University of Texas, number 35. Here is Durant for the way outside. Durant makes his move. Oh, big finish. Durant fires. Bang. Wait long for Kevin Durant to make his Houston debut as KD will lead his new squad to his old stomping grounds in OKC on opening night. We now welcome an NBA reporter Tim McMahon who covers all things Texas NBA, all things Rockets. Tim, what were your first impressions when you saw the league schedule makers worked their magic and decided to have KD in OKC as the Thunder raised their first ever banner? Howdy, Vanessa. I had a deep appreciation for the NBA’s feeling for uh how to create a little bit of drama. How do you create drama with a bunch of boy scouts raising a championship banner of the rafters? You bring back the guy who spurned that city almost a decade ago. And look, Kevin Durant’s free agency departure has kind of loomed over the Thunder franchise for years now. They got out under from under that shadow last year. Obviously, this is about Shay Gildas Alexander and the Thunder, a championship team perhaps a dynasty that’s blooming in Bricktown. But look, even game seven of the NBA finals, what was the biggest story of that day? It wasn’t game seven of the finals. It was Kevin Durant being traded that morning. Kind of his pursuit of happiness continuing now to a fifth stop of his NBA career. And where better for that edition of Kevin Durant’s career to begin where it all began back in Oklahoma City and they’re finally celebrating a championship there. However poetic opening night may be, do you think it’s going to serve as that closure for the Thunder organization and their fan base? I mean, this will be one heck of a litmus test. Is this going to be about the angst of Kevin Durant, or the celebration of Shay Gildas Alexander, of Jaylen Williams, Chad Hongren, and this team that just reeled off 68 wins, just won a championship, has a chance to potentially be a dynasty. If they are ever going to not forgive, but kind of forget about the the anger towards Kevin Durant, it will be on this night. Having said that, I’m not sure that he will ever be fully forgiven in Oklahoma City. I’m not sure that number 35 will ever be up in those rafters alongside that championship banner. Might I add that Steven Adams and Jeff Green will be there, too. Maybe that’ll soften things up a little bit. I don’t know. Mark, do you think the bad blood is there to stay? It’s time to let it go. At least from the Thunder franchise. I I I don’t know that the Thunder fans are going to let it go anytime soon, but like I covered Carl Melo Anthony his first eight seasons in or his first four seasons in Denver and that bad blood has never like went away and now it looks bad. Carmemelllo’s going into the Hall of Fame and there’s still not a olive branch between him and the Nuggets and and I remember seeing Vince Carter tear up when he went back as a player to Toronto and they healed. Melo never got that. So, what do the Nuggets do now? You know, now Lu Joker is wearing his jersey. He deserves his jersey to be retired there. He’s one of the top scorers of all time. And and I think the Thunder need to get ahead of it. Do some things to make Durant feel good about his time there. He he won an MVP. He led him to their first finals. He’s going to make the Hall of Fame. Be the bigger person and get him back into the fold. Be the bigger person. Asking that fan base that was in their feelings. Thunder as an organization to beat the bigger. Oh, you’re saying the not the fans. Good, good clarification. Kevin Durant is a legend of the game. One of the three players that we are celebrating yesterday. I called him the trifecta. LeBron, Steph, and KD. KD coming back. I don’t think it’ll be welcome arms always cheers, but it is momentous because it showed that the franchise has turned the page. They won a championship and now turning the page maybe allows you to appreciate the past in having Kevin Durant is great. The one thing that I love about this game is not just, you know, what’s happening outside the lines, what’s happening within the lines. These are two teams that will compete for championships based off of their construction for the years to come. The Rockets finished number two in the West and they added the piece that mattered, the one that will help boost their offense. They already have Eay. They already have the defense. They have maintained their young core which includes an all-star and Alfred and Shangon. And now you have the generational player that is going to hopefully bring them to the promised land. But the team that is literally trying to stop them, we get them on night one. When they get their rings, when the banner drops, when you have the MVP in SGA, when you have these rising stars of Chat Homegrren and obviously JDub, it it could not be a better situation. But I do think that there is some kind of absolution in the fact that this is the only franch like this is the first time the franchise has a championship since Seattle, you know, ever since it moved to OKC. So, there’s some peace there, but I don’t know if the peace is going to like mean KD is going to be crying. I don’t think Katie’s gonna I don’t think I I don’t know I don’t know that KD is gonna be shedding tears and the NBA schedule makers definitely have a flare for the dramatics. That is for sure. All right, bringing it back to the here and now. The Rockets made a big splash trading for KD, but despite Houston being eligible to sign Durant to a 2-year, $118 million extension, no deal has been reached. So Tim, I’m going to bring you in on this. Why do you think Rafel Stone and the Rockets front office are holding on on holding off on this? because there’s not a sense of urgency to get it done right now. The Rockets have other business that they need to handle this summer, primarily the extension for Tory East. And look, it was a big splash. It was potentially the final piece that they needed to be a real deal contender, that go-to guy that they were sorely missing last season. Big splash, but they didn’t push all their chips in. They were very patient as far as the the pursuit of a trade for Kevin Durant. Matter of fact, I wouldn’t say they pursued it. They waited till the the price was at a value that they felt was was comfortable for them. Kevin Grant’s their best player. He’s not necessarily their priority. And that that’s not an insult to him. Their priority is making sure that they have as long of a runway as possible while trying to cash in on this window that they’ve created by getting Kevin Durant. And certainly, I think both sides want that to be more than a one-year window. But it’s not going to be a max extension. If that was the priority for Kevin Durant, it would have been done in conjunction with the trade and he probably wouldn’t have ended up in Houston. So, I think you’re going to see both sides take a patient approach. They will work together. Um, but again, I don’t think this is an urgent situation and even if they get to camp, even if they get to the start of the season, if it’s not done, I don’t think you’re going to see panic from either side. They want to work together. They want to position themselves to win a championship. And the Rockets want to be positioned to contend for championships long after KD’s hung up his shoes. Tim, I was nodding my head the entire time because one of my favorite parts of the Kevin Durant trade is that the Rockets did not give up all of their young core like a lot of teams do to get superstars. So Mark Spears, do you like the way the Rockets are playing this? I don’t. I remember what happened in San Francisco uh his last season with Golden State. The the longer it takes or if it doesn’t happen, it’s going to be something that’s going to be talked about every day. And that’s just how us as the media are. And Kevin answers questions. And I I know it was a nightmare for Kevin and the Warriors his last season at Golden State. And it caused a lot of stress for him. And if this kind of action returns to Houston, I think this kumbaya that y’all two were having about how amazing the Houston Rockets are going to be is going to be a cloud. That’s going to be, you know, Kevin is honest. He holds his emotions on his sleeve. And if he gets asked about that every day, it’s going to be a distraction. But the circumstanc the the Rocket spokeswoman right here. But the circumstances of him going to Golden State, that was a whole different circus that he had to deal with. Same thing with Brooklyn and same thing with Phoenix. Yes. He was of his own. No, no, no. But what I’m saying is that when he first went there, there was a lot of criticism on him going. Okay. This is a different circumstance going from Phoenix now to Houston. You could just tell I saw him recently a couple weeks ago like he’s in in a good place now. now it’s just playing basketball and competing and trying to win a championship again with a new core and he and Eay getting along so well. He and Rockets assistant coach Royale Ivy being very good friends. But we are we are 100% on the same page here for sure. Thank you. Thank you so much. They’re looking at that 2027 with Aman Thompson. That’s right. All right. The Slim Reaper is a professional scorer and of course could continue his march of the scoring record books this season. KD could end up as high as fifth on the NBA’s all-time scoring list by the end of next season if he plays in 70 games and averages 25 points a night. All right, that he’d be passing MJ, by the way. All right.

NBA TODAY | Houston Rockets won’t going “all in” on Kevin Durant contract extension – Tim MacMahon