Phoenix Suns star Kevin Durant threw a monkey wrench in the Golden State Warriors‘ ambitious plan to bring him back and re-pair him with Stephen Curry.
Shams Charania of ESPN reported that Durant does not want to go back to Golden State.
“The Warriors have been seriously pursuing Kevin Durant over the last week, but sources tell me that Durant has no desire for a reunion. He does not want to go back to the Warriors,” Charania said on “NBA Today” on Wednesday, Feb. 5.
Charania’s report confirmed what Marc Stein and Jake Fischer earlier reported that there is a “distinct sense percolating now that Durant does not want to be traded at all this week” and that he has “serious reservations about a second Warriors stint if he were to be shipped there.”
This ends the Warriors’ pursuit of Durant, who was the Finals MVP of the Warriors’ title runs in 2017 and 2018.
Chris Haynes subsequently reported that the Warriors “do not want to bring in a disgruntled superstar.”
With less than 24 hours before the NBA trade deadline, the Warriors are running out of options in their search for a top-tier star to pair with Curry, Haynes added.
Warriors Desperate to Land a Star
The Warriors have aggressively pursued big-name stars since last year’s NBA trade deadline from LeBron James to Paul George and Lauri Markkanen last summer. But in those nixed deals, especially in the George and Markkanen pursuits, they were unwilling to go all-in.
But The Athletic report painted the Warriors front office as becoming “increasingly impatient” especially in the wake of their Western Conference rivals Los Angeles Lakers and Dallas Mavericks executing a stunning swap of their stars Luka Dončić and Anthony Davis.
Jake Fischer also said the same along those lines in “The Stein Line” Substack newsletter on Monday, Feb. 3.
Green all but confirmed this after the Warriors beat the Orlando Magic on Tuesday.
“We all know (Joe Lacob’s) pissed sitting at .500. You’d be a fool to sit back and think everything (is OK). Not with that guy,” Green told reporters. “You gotta expect they’ll be aggressive. Luka Dončić just got traded. So everyone thinks everything possible.”
With dwindling options, what is the Warriors’ next move?
Will Warriors Settle With Brandon Ingram?
Golden State “has also examined the prospect of acquiring New Orleans’ Brandon Ingram” as a backup option in case a Durant or Jimmy Butler trade did not materialize.
“Although Ingram did not have great success under Warriors coach Steve Kerr during their late summer run together at the 2023 FIBA World Cup, we’ve been told not to discount the possibility that the Warriors could pursue the one-time former All-Star playing out his current contract on an expiring $36 million salary if Golden State cannot land one of its higher-profile targets,” Fischer wrote on Tuesday, Feb. 4.
And now that Durant has followed Butler to shut down the idea of heading to The Bay, will the Warriors settle with Ingram?
Fischer and Stein also reported that the New Orleans Pelicans “have held ongoing dialogues with both Toronto and Atlanta” for Ingram.
Like Heavy Sports’s content? Be sure to follow us.
This article was originally published on Heavy Sports
The post Warriors Get Bad News Amid Kevin Durant Trade Rumors appeared first on Heavy Sports.