The Phoenix Suns were determined to trade Kevin Durant before the 2025 NBA draft, and that's exactly what they did. Unfortunately for them, it came at the expense of what's coming back in return. Even worse, it yet again exposes the franchise's most damning flaw: The Suns are completely incapable of remaining patient, and have been ever since owner Mat Ishbia took over the team.
Let’s start with the trade details. As first reported by ESPN’s Shams Charania, Phoenix is sending Durant to the Houston Rockets in exchange for the No. 10 pick (which is actually their own), Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, and five second-round picks.
If you won’t say it, I will: Woof.
We all knew the Suns were never going to get anywhere near what they gave up for Durant when they acquired him from the Brooklyn Nets in 2023: Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson, four unprotected first-round picks, and one swap. Though he remains a superstar, KD’s trade value has dipped by default. He turns 37 in September, is coming off an ankle injury, is entering the final season of his contract, and could require a new deal that pays him $60-plus million per year through his age-39 campaign.
But this? It isn’t just suboptimal. It’s embarrassing. And it could have potentially been avoided if the Suns didn’t set an arbitrary timeline for moving him.
Waiting out the Kevin Durant trade market was always the right move
In the face of very little leverage during negotiations, the Suns should have resigned themselves to creating some. Waiting to move Durant until after the draft may have cost them the ability to zero in on specific 2025 NBA draft picks. But that’s a small price to pay if it drums up your return.
Sure, there’s a chance that offers never would have improved. So what? A first-round pick attached to one bad salary (Green), and a solid role player (Brooks) would probably always be on the table.
Waiting would have increased the odds of a better offer coming out of the woodwork. After Giannis Antetokounmpo did the Suns a major solid, Durant was the biggest prize available on the trade market. Suitors would have gravitated toward him over time, getting more desperate after the free-agency dust settled.
Phoenix instead acted like a franchise that had no choice but to move KD before the draft—a wildly flawed mindset that represents the continuation of a troubling trend.
The Suns are too impulsive under Mat Ishbia
The Suns during the Ishbia era of ownership have done nothing but sabotage themselves by acting impulsively.
Other teams would have negotiated harder when acquiring Durant in the first place. More patient squads would not have rushed into a Bradley Beal trade that, as it turns out, contributed to KD’s exit. They would have done more to keep Toumani Camara out of the Deandre Ayton trade. And they sure as heck would not have horcuxed their 2031 first-round pick into three lesser selections, one of which the Suns burned to grease the wheels of a Jusuf Nurkic salary dump.
Phoenix will not be altogether hopeless so long as Devin Booker remains on the roster. It also has no chance of sniffing title contention anytime soon if it keeps acting impatiently.
Everything the Suns have done under Ishbia, from the Durant acquisition to his departure, is woefully shortsighted—and, for now, the fatal flaw threatening to trap the organization in the middle of nowhere for the foreseeable future.