{"id":126701,"date":"2025-03-03T14:30:20","date_gmt":"2025-03-03T19:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=126701"},"modified":"2025-03-03T13:48:39","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T18:48:39","slug":"3-kevin-durant-trade-destinations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/03\/3-kevin-durant-trade-destinations\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Kevin Durant Trade Destinations To Win His Third Ring"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Barring a miracle turnaround, the Phoenix Suns are likely going to fall way short of expectations this season. Right now, they are the 11th seed in the Western Conference at 28-33, they are in real danger of missing the play-in tournament completely. On top of that, it is being reported that the Suns and <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/duranke01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kevin Durant<\/a> will probably part ways this offseason. We are going to look at three of the best Kevin Durant trade options that could help the future Hall-of-Famer add another championship to his already impressive resume.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>3 Kevin Durant Trade Destinations To Win His Third Ring<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h3><strong>Houston Rockets-Durant Trade<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Rockets could be a perfect spot for Durant to win his third championship. They have knocked on the door of an NBA Finals appearance many times over the last decade, and Durant was a big reason they never made it all the way. A <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/05\/rockets-kevin-durant-trade\/\" target=\"_self\">Houston Rockets-Durant trade<\/a> could be a full-circle moment that results in a championship for both parties.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Rockets have many young players and draft picks they could offer the Suns for Durant. They could trade a significant amount of assets without depleting their roster of too much talent. Pairing Durant with the young and hungry Rockets, who have already shown they can contend in the West, could be a dangerous combination.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Reporting for ESPN NBA Countdown on the Suns, Kevin Durant and what&#8217;s at stake: <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/69UeeowSOP\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/69UeeowSOP<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/1896347398936641616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 2, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3><strong>A Reunion in Golden State<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Warriors <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/19\/kevin-durant-comments-leave-door-open-warriors\/\" target=\"_self\">wanted to trade for Durant<\/a> at this year\u2019s NBA trade deadline. They weren\u2019t able to pull it off, since Durant said he didn&#8217;t want to go there however, it&#8217;s possible he reconsiders over the summer. Durant\u2019s only two championships were when he teamed up with <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/curryst01.htmlhttps:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/curryst01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Stephen Curry<\/a> from 2016\u00a0to\u00a02019. They also helped lead the Olympic team to a gold medal this summer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Warriors would be contenders with Durant back on the roster. This makes them an intriguing Durant trade option. They have a few young players whom the Suns could find valuable, but the Warriors would have to cough up future draft picks as well to make a deal happen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unlike the Rockets, the Warriors are a veteran team who have proved their championship pedigree. If Durant wants another ring, getting back with his old buddies in the Bay could be a smooth path.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>The Mavericks Attempt to Right Their Wrongs<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Mavericks may need to do some damage control. They let go of the best player in their franchise&#8217;s history, and the fans are not happy. The Mavericks have already shown interest in trading for Durant, and they could be a legitimate Durant trade destination this summer. They are desperate to contend without <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/doncilu01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Luka Doncic<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Mavericks want to pair Durant with <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/i\/irvinky01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kyrie Irving<\/a> and <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/davisan02.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Anthony Davis<\/a>, a trio that could definitely have a shot at an NBA championship. The Mavericks might not have as many assets to make the trade as the Warriors or Rockets, but they still could get it done. Durant could have some interest in teaming up with his former NBA and Olympic teammates in Dallas, but the Mavericks\u2019 ownership and management may need to do some major rebranding to recruit him there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo credit: \u00a9 Thomas Shea-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Barring a miracle turnaround, the Phoenix Suns are likely going to fall way short of expectations this season. Right now, they are the 11th seed in the Western Conference at 28-33, they are in real danger of missing the play-in tournament completely. On top of that, it is being reported that the Suns and Kevin [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5284,"featured_media":126725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,30,25,31,62,28,4721],"tags":[240,69,406,1133,48],"class_list":["post-126701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-mavericks","category-warriors","category-rockets","category-nba","category-suns","category-trade-rumors","tag-anthony-davis","tag-kevin-durant","tag-kyrie-irving","tag-luka-doncic","tag-stephen-curry"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126701"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126727,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126701\/revisions\/126727"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}