Suns Drama already leaking (Kevin Durant never felt comfortable in Phoenix’s offense per SHAMS)

[ElectricMayhem]

Suns should have never fired Monty Williams.

Exactly! It would have made me so much happier had they kept him.

[Johnny Fontane]

Someone ought to tell the suns new owner basketball is only played with one ball

[hauntedcomputer]

The trouble is you're paying three #1s and at best you have two #2s and a #4.

Team building is still more important than on-court talent. Grayson Allen and Nurkic had pretty good years. Imagine if they had a playmaking defender instead of Beal. They probably still capped out at second round, but at least it wouldn't have been humiliating.

[og15]

It seems like everyone saw these problems coming except for KD himself.

I would assume the Suns need to be added there too, since they made all these moves

The original KD trade was fine, Booker + KD is a solid pairing if you give them a PG, a rim protector and a defensive wing. Their problem was adding Beal, and while from a talent standpoint it's fine you start to get diminishing returns as you aren't filling needs.

They still won 49 games with just 53 games from Beal, but you could do better with a better built roster.

I don't know if the Beal one had anything to do with KD, in terms of him asking for Beal or anything like that, so wouldn't really say "everyone saw these problems coming except for KD" in regards to that aspect.

[Sane]

I feel like they can re-tool fairly easily:

- Bench Beal. There aren't enough shots for 3 scorers who are all below average to average passers. Durant and Booker need to shoot a lot to earn their salary. Beal can carry the best bench unit in the NBA with him in it, watch his health and still finish games if he's playing great with the other two. He'd still get starter minutes. If he doesn't like it, he can waive his no-trade clause.

- Bring in Kris Dunn and one of Kyle Lowry or Patrick Beverley or DeAnthony Melton this summer. Let the two players you signed battle for starting PG. They're not great, but an elite team can afford one below average starter as long as they bring something sorely lacking and there are other players taking on heavy offensive loads. In this case, they need players who can play decent defense, pass the ball to scorers without turning it over and make open 3's.

- Nurkic, Durant, Booker and a PG will all start. This lineup cannot survive without a SF who can guard big wings. That's the final missing piece to get to a professional starting lineup. This player has to be 6'6-6'9, be able to guard wings and make open 3's. Now comes the tricky part: Grayson Allen had a fantastic season and is a very good player. However, he just doesn't fit here. They don't need a 3&D SG. They need a 3&D SF/PF. At 6'4 and 200lbs he's not going to be enough at SF when the playoffs roll around unless you want Booker/Durant guarding the best opponent wing every night. So I'd say it's tough to trade a guy who just had a breakout season, but I would look at it as an opportunity. You thank him for his work and seek a trade. They need someone like a poor man's: Herb Jones, Trey Murphy, young Mikal Bridges, young PJ Tucker, Tari Eason, etc. A bigger Royce O'neal. Grant Williams maybe? Finney Smith? You need a passable shooter who is happy to defend and do the dirty work and doesn't demand shots. Now you have a team who can be a great defensive team while also having enough firepower to score with anyone over 48 minutes. It was silly to think that roster could guard people in the playoffs especially after Grayson went down. Edwards is not this efficient a player, he just shredded a roster with no good wing defenders and non-elite rim protection.

- Pick up a backup C for the minimum. Someone like Daniel Theis or Andrew Drummond.

You end up with:

Nurkic/Theis
Durant/Little
Grant Williams or DFS?/Gordon
Booker/Beal
Dunn/Beal

Now you have a team. It's not a big step up, but it's a bet on better chemistry and cohesion and roles. Defense is cheaper to acquire so since they're insanely limited with assets, they should really focus on improving on that end. It's also something Vogel is better at coaching while he can leave the offense to Durant/Booker doing what they do best, getting the ball delivered TO them swiftly and 3 players around them who suit them.

That's more like a balanced roster with a minimal amount of defenders, hard workers and unselfish players around their stars whose skills are highly concentrated in pure iso scoring.

[MagicMatic]

Prepared for Durant to release his “list” of destinations with multiple allstars already there.

[brackdan70]

If Suns do trade him they won’t get anywhere close to the value they paid. It will be interesting to see what shakes out.

[EmpireFalls]

This is the end of KD being viewed as a respectable top 15 player of all time sadly.

[tsherkin]

Kevin Durant makes it basically impossible to respect him almost every time he opens his mouth, man.

Very good scorer, one of the best, particularly before injury. But dude is such a clown.

[Quattro]

Guy won't play on a team without at least 2 "stars" then complains when he's not the 100% focus on offense at all times.

[Saints14]

I'm continually disappointed by Durant. All the talent, genetics, and skills in the world, yet doesn't see the big picture of the game. Still blaming others, not that he's the only one with fault but.. if every team you're on is dysfunctional, maybe time to look in the mirror.

My hot take, accept coaching, play with an open mind, and join the spurs.

I was coming back around to him around 2019-2021, because coming back injured in the finals took guts and he was the one star in that BRK experiment who seemed like he just wanted to ball. The move to force a trade to PHX and then stuff like this sours me on him though.

LeBron influenced these guys too much. He's the only one that can pull stuff like this off and look good on the other side of it because any team LeBron went to he immediately became the alpha and led them to a championship (and thus never had to weasel his way out of a bad situation). Maybe KD thought he was that good when he went to GS and won FMVP. Hopefully the younger generation sees how these forced superteams have backfired for so many and we get less of it in the future

[Patches Perry]

Guy won't play on a team without at least 2 "stars" then complains when he's not the 100% focus on offense at all times.

Not just that but he's always drawn to stars with similar scoring acumen without much that compliments him. Booker and Beal are just a repeat of Harden and Kyrie.

Curry and Klay only worked because they are so great off the ball.

[infinite11285]

Well, this certainly aged poorly.

Read on Twitter

[OriginalRed]

- They won't do it but Beal should come off the bench. Just redundant to have KD, Book, and Beal all starting without a playmaker and Beal could easily average 20 against opposing team's benches.
- They need a point guard. Badly.
- Fire Frank Vogel. He can't coach an offense to save his life.

Outside that, not much else they can do given their cap situation. Nobody is gutting their roster to trade for KD anymore. It has to be a disgruntled superstar for disgruntled superstar swap.

[Michael Jackson]

The trouble is you're paying three #1s and at best you have two #2s and a #4.

Team building is still more important than on-court talent. Grayson Allen and Nurkic had pretty good years. Imagine if they had a playmaking defender instead of Beal. They probably still capped out at second round, but at least it wouldn't have been humiliating.

In an imaginary world a healthy (yeah right) Lonzo Ball instead of Beal solves a lot of the Suns problems.

[Stannis]

I honestly don't blame him. The Bradley Beal experiment was a total failure.

[Stannis]

im taking him on the knicks. i think he fits great, if he defers to brunson. we have everything in place. he can just get buckets and ball over here.

bogey +filler and 3 picks

Same here, but I think Knicks have to give Randle the boot to make this work. No way Durant with the Knicks work with Randle getting 20 FGAs. He would have to go.

Brunson + Durant as the volume scorers.

Easy bucks for Donte, OG, Hart.

Durant also wouldn't even have to worry about the 5 with Hartenstein, Mitchell, and Precious.

[Doranku]

KD's career outside of Golden State is a colossal failure.

[kenwood3333]

Bradley Beal is the MVP of Nba scammers. Ben Simmons looks like a baby in comparison

[DelAbbot]

KD will definitely try his best to get traded to a better team, if he's known for something, its not for sticking around on a slightly above average team.

How about KD for Randle + filler + all NY's FRPs?