Three reasons why Kevin Durant’s return to the Golden State Warriors makes sense.
The Phoenix Suns will tell us everything they want us to know about Kevin Durant and the “super team” that general manager James Jones has assembled.
Suns owner Mat Ishbia even doubled down on this current Suns roster after they were humiliated in a four-game sweep by the Minnesota Timberwolves to begin the NBA Playoffs.
“The narrative that the house is burning is incorrect,” Ishbia told reporters earlier this week, according NBA.com. “The Phoenix Suns are performing well. Excellent. Not as good as we’d like to be. Not as good as what we’ll do next year. And that’s what we’ll figure out: what we need to tweak, adapt, and adjust to win a championship next year.”
Don’t you love this media spin? Even after adding Bradley Beal to team up with Kevin Durant and Devin Booker, the Suns did not look like top-end title contenders throughout the 2023-24 season. They finished with a 49-33 record, barely escaping the NBA Play-In Tournament in the process.
Then, came the humiliating four-game sweep at the hands of Minnesota. These Suns lost those four outings by a combined 60 points. Talk about an inability to be competitive.
Even before the Suns’ postseason problems, there were allegations that KD was unhappy with the organization’s direction. It came about a year after the two-time NBA Finals MVP made his way from the Brooklyn Nets to the desert.
We’re now learning more about Durant’s future and whether he’ll be with the Suns next season. Golden State Warriors source Monte Poole has said that a return to Northern California could be in the works this summer.
Any moves the Warriors make this summer will be out of extreme urgency to maximize the Curry window. In short, adding a plug-and-play star. Durant and Curry will reunite in July as members of Team USA. [Steve] Kerr is the head coach. Assuming no movement in the interim, they will have almost six weeks to engage in conversation and reminiscence.
[Warriors owner Joe] Lacob, who already committed to retiring Durant’s number, might be willing to personally lay the red carpet for KD’s return. A KD-Warriors reunion is not as far-fetched as it might seem,” he continued, “It’s more conceivable than consummating a deal with LeBron James, something the Warriors pondered in February.”
There are several layers to this idea. Durant’s three-year Warriors tenure included back-to-back championships. It also culminated after the 2018-19 season, when KD sustained an Achilles injury and had a spat with Draymond Green.
Would Durant once again take a second seat to Stephen Curry in the Bay Area? Is this a potential fit? What about Green’s role in the decision-making? Here, we’ll look at three reasons why a reunion makes sense.
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