There is growing chatter of the Suns pulling the trigger on a Kevin Durant to Warriors trade ahead of the February 6 NBA trade deadline.
According to Jake Fischer of The Stein Line, the Suns have no option but to facilitate Durant’s reunion with Golden State to acquire Jimmy Butler from the Heat. With the Suns unable to move Bradley Beal’s contract to either the Heat or the Warriors, they are in a precarious position of departing with Durant to make salaries work.
“One reason for the significant uptick in Durant chatter, sources said, is that trading him appears to be the only way for Phoenix to acquire Miami’s Jimmy Butler before Thursday’s deadline,” Fischer wrote in his newsletter on February 4.
“Why would the Suns want Butler if they no longer have Durant on the roster? No one asked by The Stein Linehas been able to furnish a good answer to that question, but rumbles persist that a scenario that transports Butler from South Beach to the desert — with Durant moving back to the Bay Area — is indeed in play.”
Suns Interested in Draymond Green?
While Fischer’s report didn’t touch upon Golden State’s outgoing salaries to pull off a Durant transaction, The Athletic reported that the Suns have targeted Draymond Green.
“In exploratory conversations [with the Suns], the Warriors have only been met with an exorbitant asking price in theoretical structures — essentially everything of future value — considering the tricky spot the Suns seem to find themselves,” wrote NBA insiders Anthony Slater, David Aldridge and Sam Amick.
“League sources say four-time All-Star forward Draymond Green, who has an established relationship with fellow Michigan State alum and Suns owner Mat Ishbia, is among the Warriors players Phoenix is known to covet.”
Even Green realizes that he could be traded before the February 6 deadline. After the Warriors defeated the Magic on February 3, Green acknowledged that Warriors governor Joe Lacob was compelled to pull out all the stops to improve the roster.
“We all know (Lacob is) pissed sitting at .500,” Green said, via The Athletic. “You’d be a fool to sit back and think like, ‘Ah, man, everything (is OK).’ Not with that guy. That guy is always trying to win, always pushing the envelope as much as he can.
“You gotta expect they’ll be aggressive. … Luka Doncic just got traded, so everyone thinks everything is possible at this point, right?”
Curry Will Welcome Durant Reunion
Stephen Curry previously spoke about not holding any grudges against Durant for the circumstances under which the latter departed from the franchise in 2019.
In an interview with Logan Murdock and Raja Bell on the “Real Ones” podcast, Curry explained why he didn’t have any “hurt feelings” when Durant departed.
“I never really had any hurt, to begin with,” Curry said of Durant’s exit. “I knew as a man, as an athlete, he didn’t owe me anything; he doesn’t owe our franchise anything. It was a situation where he left it was his own decision. I made sure I was open and available about how I felt about him as a person, as a player, how confident I was we would be able to win for a long time.
“Like you say your piece on that front, but at the end of the day, he makes the decision to leave. I fully respect him as a person and had so much appreciation for what we were able to accomplish. I didn’t really have any resentment on that front.”
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