Bickley Blast: Will a Kevin Durant trade be Kevin-sent or heaven-sent for Phoenix Suns?

Bickley Blast: Will a Kevin Durant trade be Kevin-sent or heaven-sent for Phoenix Suns?

and Marada Mornings arizona sports the local sports leader Bigley Blast kevin Durant’s time in Phoenix is coming to an end the news could drop at any moment the moment of reckoning is fast approaching so how are you feeling Suns fans ready to turn the page excited about the renewal of your basketball team or terrified by what this trade and the future might yield some feel enthused because Orlando just traded five draft assets including four first round picks to Memphis for Desmond Bane and if Bane can command that kind of hall a KD trade has to be comparable right some feel the draft hall Memphis just acquired marks a great chance to consider trading Devin Booker as well and rebuilding with a wealth of new assets alas the Suns seem unwilling to even consider the option which means they remain somewhat delusional about how far they’ve fallen and some fear the front office doesn’t have the experience to thread this needle which might include a three-team trade to allow KD to get where he wants to go and get the Suns in return my fear is something much bigger namely whether the new general manager is the next Sam Prey or just another puppet exe executing the desires of the owner and Isaiah Thomas his Hall of Fame buddy because the latter might make the difference between a trade that is Kevin and one that is heavensent all right today’s Vickley Blast brought to you by my great friends at Chapman BMW make luxury attainable find them online at chapmanbmw.com there’s been a lot of buzz especially in social media from people saying essentially Desmond Bane who’s a very good young player but obviously he doesn’t have the name or cache of somebody like Kevin Durant there have been a lot of responses like well if the Grizzlies were able to get that much for Bane then man what does that mean the price will be for KD it also you could argue maybe helps the Durant trade market in the sense that if Bane was available he’s another good young wing three-point shooter scorer who’s now off the market which would mean there were fewer other possibilities outside of Durant for teams trying to make that type of move so I think that anytime you get a big trade in the NBA it can be the start of a flurry and so the NBA draft is coming up maybe this was just the first domino to fall yeah that’s Andre Snellings on ESPN and there seems to be some speculation is everything tied together i think everybody the basketball world was waiting for the Kevin Durant trade or the announcement of an agreement between the Suns and one team or two teams or even three teams in all of this was going to be the first thing to drop well it’s not blockbuster deal yesterday four draft picks for Desmond Bane and as it pertains to the Suns it’s an interesting discussion to have what does that mean does that mean you know you you can read whatever headline you want i was reading all kinds of headlines this morning and there was one from yesterday in the last 24 hours sun’s not expecting a big hall for Kevin Durant well if Desmond Bane again now there are expectations there should be expectations yeah that’s that’s kind of the thesis of the blast that now the expectations have kind of been ramped up a little bit which means it’s another chance for it it either means this might turn out better than a lot of people feared or it means a lot of people are going to be disappointed when the draft when the trade is finally executed yeah i mean I I think it’d be a hard cell if if the consensus is wow that’s all they got for Kevin Durant that’s going to be a real tough pill to swallow for a lot of people i agree but realistically if you look at it the the list of suitors has been narrowed because of this again I know Brian Winhor I want to play the sound again from Brian Winhor um who kind of compared it to another recent example and he he did this under the guise of hey there’s three teams on the list for Kevin Durant now miami San Antonio Houston there could be other teams including one north of the border i want to bring up another team here because this is somewhat reminiscent of what happened in 2018 when Kawhi Leonard was a free agent he had a list of teams he preferred to go to he had one year left on his contract and the Toronto Raptors were willing to roll the dice as a possible rental and once again you don’t see Toronto on Durant’s list but the Raptors are one of the teams lurking out there who may be willing to do this without knowing that they can keep Durant on an extension and basically potentially be a rental and I think there’s a couple others including the Los Angeles Clippers and potentially even the Minnesota Timberwolves this is still wide open maybe Durant gets what he wants maybe he has to accept something else yeah it’s very interesting look and I’m not saying it shouldn’t be suggested because there is the recent history i think there’s a lot of details that are left out there and the details that I brought up earlier is the difference in age kawhi Leonard was 27 years old when he landed in Toronto for that year and the San Antonio Spurs had they had every reason to do what was best for them and them alone uh in trading Kawhi Leonard to wherever they didn’t have to play ball with him because Kawhi Leonard didn’t play ball with them literally didn’t play ball that last year in San Antonio he took his ball and went home it might actually benefit Kevin Durant and his image and his legacy if um if he were traded someplace he didn’t want to go as if okay we’re not indulging you and you’re this is the this is the city that’s next on the KD tour but I I can’t get by I can’t get past the idea that the Suns might get an offer from a team that might have Kevin Durant for one season that is better than the offer for the teams that Kevin Durant will sign longterm for it’s I’m I’m having a hard time reconciling those two because that would tell me that the teams that are willing to extend him are really trying to take advantage of the Suns or that they don’t have the same assets i mean it could just happen to be that the team that he doesn’t want to go to happens to have the assets you covet more i can imagine in the discussions between Rich Clim and Kevin Durant his people and the Phoenix Suns they are hammering home the point look he’s going to be 37 years old m we can’t afford this Kawhi Leonard pit stop for a year because that’s one year less availability especially if they’re not willing to extend uh or I’m not willing to you know my my client’s not willing to play there for more than a year the Kawhi Leonard thing was remarkable in that it was the one-year pit stop they wanted to keep and they won a freaking championship and he still bolted town so Raptors fans are like “All right that’s cool we got him for a year we won a championship.” And he moves on right now and another team that’s off the radar too and Minnesota right now appears to be off the radar a little bit because of their salary cap situation being a second apron team brian Winhorse brought up the Clippers that was a team that Gambo brought up last week in possibilities jake Fischer who writes for the Stein Line uh newsletter over the weekend he he brought it up clipper and they even have a a clutch points graphic a pretty convincing one too of of Kevin Durant in a in a um Clippers uniform with James Harden and Kawi Leonard uh concerning regarding the Clippers we’ve been consistently told LA has no desire to part with the Vita Zubats as much as the uh Suns surely covet the consistently improving center the Clippers however do hold two future first round picks and some available swap rates to sweeten a potential Durant offer that would almost certainly require the inclusion of Norman Powell Bogdon Bdonovich and Derek Jones Jr i’m going to throw up the stop sign there and say no they can’t do that i’m going to throw up the stop sign i like Norman Powell a lot as a player but again the Suns have been fighting positional overlapping for the last two seasons they can’t go further down that road in any trade for Kevin Durant totally agree with you totally and that’s another thing that I think is going to be a litmus test for the people making this trade if if they go for the star quality or if they go if you end up with positional overlap again then they’ve learned nothing they’ve learned absolutely nothing and so there’s there’s a lot of tentacles to this uh Zubots would be a tremendous addition they’re not going to want to let him go um Steven Adams just signed an extension with the Rockets he was at the very top of what looks like a very very mediocre center free agent market yeah you just blip out there for a second cuz I certainly did we blipped out for a second that was very very bizarre yeah everything went quiet that was weird because you kept talking i saw your lips moving i didn’t hear anything and then when your audio came back you said exactly what you were going to say dan Bickley being a pro my brain just stayed right on task he knew the message he was delivering and he by God delivered right so this to me um again I’ I’ve got a lot of trepidation i’ve got a lot of excitement i just as I said last week I just want everything about the last two years collected in a dust b dust bin dust ban whatever it is dust bin dust pan and thrown in the garbage that’s what I want i I I want every I want a new basketball team that plays hard and and plays their tails off and something something that is dramatically different than what we’ve had for the past couple of years thanks for watching Bickley and Marada click to see the latest Bickley blast and hit the button in the middle to subscribe to Arizona Sports

Suns’ Kevin Durant reportedly has three teams top of mind for potential landing spots if traded this offseason. As trade rumors continue to run rampant, Dan Bickley considers if the Phoenix Suns can land the best deal for the organization or if they’ll have to take the best deal for the superstar forward.

Swing points for each Kevin Durant suitor in Suns’ trade negotiations: https://arizonasports.com/nba/phoenix-suns/kevin-durant-trade-news/3587061/

Subscribe to the Arizona Sports daily newsletter: https://bit.ly/3QWcj1x
Read articles from Arizona Sports: https://arizonasports.com/
Download the Arizona Sports app: https://arizonasports.com/the-arizona-sports-98-7-fm-app/
Sign up for texts from Arizona Sports: https://arizonasports.com/text-alerts/
Listen live to Arizona Sports: https://arizonasports.com/listen-live/
Watch live: arizonasports.com/watch-live
Follow the team: https://bit.ly/3R0PIAJ

ARIZONA SPORTS SOCIAL MEDIA
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ArizonaSports/
X: https://x.com/azsports
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@arizonasports987
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arizsports/

ARIZONA SPORTS PODCASTS: https://arizonasports.com/category/podcasts/

Video: Felisa Cárdenas and Jeremy Schnell/Arizona Sports
Photos: Getty Images