Kevin Durant Likely To Be Traded; Count Cavs Among Teams With No Interest

We’ve heard all the chatter, and according to ESPN’s Shams Charania, it’s true. The Phoenix Suns indeed will be looking to trade NBA superstar Kevin Durant this summer.

Durant is older and slowing down, but he can still get buckets, he still plays unselfishly and he can help your team win some games. He’ll draw plenty of interest from those looking to try to get to another level.

The Cavaliers will not be among those teams.

Let’s start with Durant. He’ll be 37 years old at the start of next season. But he sure looked good at 36, averaging 26.6 points, 6.0 rebounds and 4.2 assists in 62 games. He shot 52.7% from the field and 43.0% on 3-pointers. He even scored 42 against the Cavs in their most recent meeting.

Given his age and the NBA wear and tear on his body, that’s all pretty remarkable.

That said, the Suns were the league’s biggest disappointment, overtaking the Philadelphia 76ers in the process. Durant previously played for the Brooklyn Nets, when no less than Kenny Atkinson was their coach (briefly, anyway). Then the Nets hired Steve Nash. 

Like the Suns, the Nets went through several coaches when Durant was on the team. Like the Suns, the Nets with Durant were the league’s biggest disappointment.

So if you keep changing coaches … and keep disappointing … well, there’s a common denominator there. Fair or not, that common denominator is Durant, a sure-fire Hall of Famer and one of the greatest scorers of all time.

He may not be a great winner, though. That’s not meant to trash him. It’s just to show that if you want to win big, well, you’d better be able to surround him with the right mix of stars. 

Anyway, back to the Cavaliers. They won 60+ games for just the third time in franchise history. They did it for the first time without LeBron James. They are cooking as they enter the NBA playoffs with the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed.

Depending on what happens in the postseason, they seem mostly set for quite some time. This is just the start of the Atkinson era. Their core is relatively young. Many of their key players are just now entering their prime. They have a remarkable power forward in Evan Mobley, who plays the same spot as Durant. They are unified as a team.

So even if they could add Durant to Mobley, Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Jarrett Allen, De’Andre Hunter and Ty Jerome … well, the Cavs wouldn’t do it. That’s the case even if the Cavs could make a steal of a deal.

Now, no one but Yours Truly has ever mentioned Durant with the Cavaliers until now. But it’s fun to play the “what if” game. This is just basketball. So when I read about Durant being traded (again) this summer, I thought about covering the NBA out of Cleveland, and if the local team would … nah, never.

The Cavs are gearing up for the playoffs. Durant is at home. That is how far apart they will always remain. As it should and will be.