Kevin Durant trade winners and losers: Why Rockets, Ben Simmons benefit from Suns’ splash; bad news for Lakers
Ben Simmons #BenSimmons
Kevin Durant has changed teams twice in his career. The first time he did so, he created the greatest professional basketball team ever assembled and won two championships with the Warriors. The second time he did so, it took (among other things) several injuries, a pandemic and a shoe that was a size too big to keep him from winning more of them. Now, he’s moved a third time. After four disappointing seasons with the Brooklyn Nets, Durant is headed to the Phoenix Suns.
If the first two Durant moves were any indications, move No. 3 is going to be seismic. The ripple effects will be felt far beyond the Nets and the Suns, so let’s abandon the two principals here. Who else is going to feel the effects of this trade most? Below are the biggest winners and losers of the Durant trade excluding the players and teams that were directly involved in it.
When the Rockets initially traded for control of every Nets first-round pick between 2021 and 2027, they probably assumed that most of those picks were going to be relatively low. The upside of making such a trade with an older roster is that maybe, if things go right, that group will age out of contention and give you one or two very valuable picks at the end of the deal. Not even in Houston’s wildest fantasies could the Rockets have imagined Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving all leaving Brooklyn with five picks left to convey.
In fairness, Brooklyn’s 2023 first-round pick is owed to Houston through a swap. The Nets currently hold a 19.5-game lead over the Rockets in the standings, so nothing is likely to come of that swap. In 2024, however, the Rockets get Brooklyn’s pick outright. They do again in 2026, and they have swap rights in 2025 and 2027. That effectively gives the Rockets four chances to cash in on Brooklyn’s implosion.
The Nets probably aren’t headed to the dumpster immediately. They’ve collected quite a bit of talent in their three star trades, and they’ve amassed so many picks from those deals that they could turn around and grab another star of their own relatively quickly. For the time being, Brooklyn’s floor is still somewhat high. Ceilings, however, are almost entirely dependent on stars. The Nets used to have three of them. Now they have none. Until the Nets start making significant moves, those picks are going to look pretty valuable. The conditions necessary for the Rockets to land a top pick are much likelier now. One injury-riddled season. One locker room breakdown. One black swan event like the pandemic that eventually broke up the Durant-Harden-Irving team.
The Rockets are one calamity away from owning the most valuable set of draft picks in basketball. It only took two years for the Harden trade to grow into one of the greatest disasters in NBA history.
Blockbuster trades are notoriously difficult to negotiate, and at one point, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Suns appeared ready to pivot into a deal that would’ve netted that Atlanta Hawks big man John Collins. Such a move would have been significant for the Hawks largely because they’ve been trying to find Collins a new home for several years now, and he’s having the worst year of his career.
His scoring is down to 13.2 points per game, the lowest figure he’s posted since his rookie season. He’s shooting a meager 25.7 percent from deep, and it’s worth asking at this stage if a lingering finger injury has altered his shot in a way that’s going to last for awhile. He’s never been a particularly good defender, and he’s owed over $78 million over the next three seasons beyond this one.
Collins is not going to be an easy player to trade, and he certainly won’t be an easy player to trade for real value. What exactly the Suns would have surrendered for him is unclear, but pretty much all of their worthwhile trade assets now belong to the Nets. Phoenix could offer to simply take on Collins’ expiring contract in exchange for some of their leftover cap filler (Dario Saric, Landry Shamet and Cameron Payne roughly match his cap figure combined), but the Suns are so thin right now that flipping three players for one very expensive one probably isn’t their preference. The Hawks may yet find a new home for Collins, but they lost one potential trade partner Wednesday night.
The Raptors are the likeliest major seller of the 2023 deadline, and the financial realities forcing them to do so only grew stronger when they acquired Jakob Poeltl Wednesday night. The problem for Toronto was that the league’s wealthiest buyers were saving their capital for someone better than anything the Raptors could offer. Why should a team give away three first-round picks for OG Anunoby when four might get them Durant over the summer? By getting this deal done on Wednesday, the Nets and Suns inadvertently cleared the way for Toronto to spend all day Thursday holding the league’s anxious contenders over a barrel. The buyers have nowhere else to go.
That is especially true in the Western Conference. Suddenly, every contender out West has to scramble to prepare for a possible playoff matchup against Durant. There are maybe half a dozen players in the NBA who can defend him adequately. The Raptors might have the single best Durant defender in basketball right now. They’ve faced off three times this season. Durant scored 27 points on 8-of-18 shooting in the first game, but was then held to 12 points in the second and 17 points in the third.
Giving up three first-round picks to land Anunoby might not have made sense when the alternative was waiting for Durant. Giving up three first-round picks might now be a necessity to any team hoping to beat Durant. Toronto will charge the desperate contenders accordingly.
The Lakers have spent the entire season weighing the pros and cons of a major trade. Yes, they have LeBron James and Anthony Davis, but would giving up their few remaining draft picks to boost a desperately thin supporting cast really be worthwhile? The Lakers made it clear that they only planned to make a major move if they felt it could vault them into the championship picture.
On Wednesday, they finally took the plunge, sending a first-round pick to the Jazz in a deal that turned Russell Westbrook into D’Angelo Russell, Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt. It may not have been the all-in move some fans were hoping for, but it was a meaningful asset investment into this season. The Lakers wouldn’t have made the move if the didn’t believe it would give them a fighting chance in the wide-open Western Conference.
Except, the Western Conference is no longer wide open. Mere hours after they made the deal, the Suns became the immediate favorite by landing Durant. The Lakers still have time to improve before the deadline. Their 2029 first-round pick remains tradable. But the information on which they made the Westbrook trade was outdated less than a day after they made it. With James and Davis, the Lakers might still feel as though they can compete with the Suns. They’ll just be doing it as significant underdogs regardless of any other moves they might make.
Winner: Ben Simmons
I know I said I’d avoid the teams involved in the trade, but it’s not as though Simmons himself was involved in the deal. In fact, he stands out as one of its primary beneficiaries. Simmons has dealt with physical injuries throughout this season, and his performance has been inconsistent as a result. Yet we can’t ignore the mental health issues that led to his trade request as a member of the 76ers. It’s not as though Brooklyn was a low-pressure environment for him.
Simmons went from one Atlantic Division contender to another. He was under a microscope every time he suited up as a Net, and the noise surrounding his even uneven play was growing louder and louder. Kristian Winfield of the New York Daily News even reported that Durant himself was “less than enthralled” with Simmons as a teammate.
The Nets are going to fade out of the spotlight now. Simmons can take his time getting his body right. When he returns, he’ll be joining a team that desperately needs his playmaking ability, but won’t be playing the sort of high-stakes games in which his other offensive flaws would become problematic. The old Simmons may not be in there anymore, but if he is, the Nets are far better positioned now to find him.
Loser: Ja Morant
On Dec. 21, Ja Morant uttered the five most infamous words of the 2022-23 NBA season: “I’m fine in the West.” Well, let’s take a look at what has happened since then:
Morant’s Grizzlies were in trouble before the Durant trade. Now the gap between Memphis and the best teams in the conference has grown even wider. If Memphis runs into Durant and the Suns in the postseason, there’s a good chance that Morant won’t, in fact, be fine in the West.