Grading the Kevin Durant trade to the Houston Rockets
Earlier today, Kevin Durant got traded to the Houston Rockets in exchange for Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, the number 10 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, and five future second round picks. This trade is the blockbuster trade of the summer, and it now seems like Kevin Durant is just jumping around from a contending team to another contending team to try and win one last ring before he hangs them up. In this article, we are going to be breaking down the trade, grading it for both teams, and telling you what to expect from Kevin Durant in this upcoming season.
This trade was huge for the Rockets. They had an amazing regular season last year, but a little bit of bad luck and some off games from their stars caused them to lose in the first round to Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors. They had to trade away one of their young stars in Jalen Green and a veteran player who controls their defense in Dillon Brooks, but I believe that the return of an aging superstar in Kevin Durant is worth their supply. For those reasons listed, I will be giving this trade an A for the Rockets.
As for the Suns, they are one step closer to truly building around Devin Booker like they need to. When they did this in 2021, they went to the NBA Finals and almost took down Giannis and the Bucks. Because Booker came into the league so early, many people forget that he is only 28 years old. The only problem was that they didn't have any picks. And even though second round picks don't hold nearly as much value as first round picks do, it is still nice to get five of them in this trade. This trade was really well done for the Suns to get this much return for Durant who wanted out anyways, and for that reason I give this trade a B+ for the Suns.
As for how Kevin Durant will perform this season and what he will do to affect fantasy basketball, well you'll just have to look at his past season. There has been tons of talk over the last couple of years about the greatness of Lebron James's longevity, but no one mentions KD when he has been just as good as Lebron. Even in his age 36 season, he put up 27/6/4 while having shooting splits of 53/43/84. Durant has always been an extremely efficient scorer and this year expect no different. If anything, Durant will play even better because he no longer has ball-dominant players beside him like Devin Booker or Bradley Beal.
Overall, this trade was just insane. Even though many people saw it coming, it was still surprising to see it happen this early in the summer, especially with the NBA Finals still going on. I think we all knew that Kevin Durant would make an immediate impact wherever he went, but I'm just here to tell you how much of an impact that will actually be. Let us know if you like these types of articles or if you like the fantasy sports-esque type of articles.