{"id":87549,"date":"2025-06-09T21:07:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T21:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/87549\/"},"modified":"2025-06-09T21:07:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T21:07:11","slug":"kevin-durant-traded-to-pistons-stephen-a-smith-lists-detroit-as-one-of-top-destinations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/87549\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Durant traded to Pistons? Stephen A. Smith lists Detroit as one of top destinations"},"content":{"rendered":"

As fans of the Detroit Pistons<\/a> mull trade proposals<\/a> for stars like the Phoenix Suns<\/a>‘ Devin Booker<\/a>, another Suns star could make an interesting fit for the Pistons.<\/p>\n

That’s at least according to Stephen A. Smith<\/a>, who listed the Pistons among his top-five destinations for veteran scorer Kevin Durant on a Monday, June 9 episode of ESPN’s First Take:<\/p>\n

“KD with Detroit, imagine that!” he said. “With Cade Cunningham? With (Malik) Beasley shooting the 3s? I mean, come on now!”<\/p>\n

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The Pistons could potentially be in the market for a scorer to play alongside Cunningham, though president of basketball operations Trajan Langdon<\/a> said in his end-of-season press conference that the team didn’t know who its No. 2 scorer would be and he considered that “a good thing.”<\/p>\n

Many fans have wanted Booker to fill that role, since he’s a proven scorer with playoff experience and is just 28 years old. It doesn’t hurt that he’s a native of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and has been spotted before at Lions games<\/a>.<\/p>\n

LET’S VOTE: Pistons NBA free agency stay or go: Malik Beasley, Dennis Schr\u00f6der, Tim Hardaway Jr.<\/a><\/p>\n

But Smith sees a pairing of Cunningham and Durant as beneficial for the Pistons, who bowed out in the playoffs after a first-round series loss<\/a> to the New York Knicks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Durant averaged 26.6 points, six rebounds and 4.2 assists per game for the Suns over the 2024-25 season, averaging 36.5 minutes per game over 62 games. He’s a four-time scoring champion, 11-time All-NBA selection, two-time NBA champion and was the league’s MVP in the 2013-14 season \u2013 one of the most decorated players in league history.<\/p>\n

But Durant also has a lot of mileage in his career. At 36, Durant trails only LeBron James and Chris Paul among active players in minutes played (41,237). He’s also played in more than 60 games per season only twice in the past six years, both with the Suns (2023-25), as the veteran has battled through injuries for much of the second half of his career.<\/p>\n

\"Phoenix<\/p>\n

Phoenix Suns forward Kevin Durant (35) drives against Detroit Pistons guard Cade Cunningham (2) during the first half at Footprint Center in Phoenix on Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024.<\/p>\n

Since Durant is still under contract through the 2025-26 season, the Pistons can only acquire him via trade, which could mean breaking up much of the team’s young core (or parting with future draft capital). Durant also comes with a $54.7 million cap hit<\/a> for the upcoming season, which could lead the Pistons to make tough financial decisions should he be acquired.<\/p>\n

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Still, Durant would represent arguably the biggest star the Pistons have had in over a generation, and could solidify a “win-now” mentality the Pistons haven’t had in many years.<\/p>\n

And apparently, it would make Stephen A. Smith quite excited.<\/p>\n

You can reach Christian at cromo@freepress.com.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Kevin Durant traded to Pistons? Stephen A. Smith loves idea<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As fans of the Detroit Pistons mull trade proposals for stars like the Phoenix Suns‘ Devin Booker, another…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3773],"tags":[7,904,909,2596,1024,296,188,3860,2292,107,938,185,910,6,191,472,297,2603,1015],"class_list":{"0":"post-87549","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-pistons","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-beasley","10":"tag-cade-cunningham","11":"tag-chris-paul","12":"tag-dennis-schroder","13":"tag-detroit","14":"tag-detroit-pistons","15":"tag-detroitpistons","16":"tag-devin-booker","17":"tag-giannis","18":"tag-kevin-durant","19":"tag-lebron-james","20":"tag-malik-beasley","21":"tag-nba","22":"tag-new-york-knicks","23":"tag-phoenix-suns","24":"tag-pistons","25":"tag-stephen-a-smith","26":"tag-the-pistons"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114655451261794382","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}