Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, the No. 10 pick and five second-round picks...That's all the Phoenix Suns could get for former Golden State Warriors superstar Kevin Durant who is now headed to his fifth NBA team in the Houston Rockets.
Durant might be turning 37-years-old before next season, but this is still a tragic trade return for someone who's still one of the best scorers in the league, and who most recently averaged 26.6 points, 6.0 rebounds and 4.2 assists on incredible 53/43/84 shooting splits.
The Suns put themselves in this position by completely losing their leverage after the mid-season trade deadline, and will now surely be regretting the way things played out just months ago when the Warriors were heavily pursuing a reunion with their former Finals MVP.
The Suns will regret not trading Kevin Durant to the Warriors
A three-team trade appeared close in February that would have likely sent Andrew Wiggins and Jonathan Kuminga to the Miami Heat, Jimmy Butler and draft capital to the Suns, and Durant back to the Bay.
The Suns seemed willing to make the deal, but it was Durant himself who shut it down and blocked a move back to the Warriors. It's not as if the star forward has a no-trade clause though, so why didn't Phoenix just try to move in silence?
Perhaps this is just the NBA now -- that star players don't get traded without their prior knowledge and consent. It's a long way from seven years ago when Kawhi Leonard wanted to go home to Los Angeles, only for the San Antonio Spurs to send him to the Toronto Raptors for a year instead.
Once the Suns didn't do a deal with the Warriors or any other team before the deadline, their hopes of reaping significant value for Durant was over. With rival teams knowing that Phoenix wanted to trade the 15x All-Star, and with Durant himself not overly happy with being involved in trade talks before the deadline, the Suns really had no leverage in recent talks with the Rockets, San Antonio Spurs, Miami Heat and others.
Now they've had to settle for someone in Green who while talented, was completely exposed by the Warriors in the playoffs and whose skillset overlaps significantly with franchise cornerstone Devin Booker.
Brooks will be helpful but is still a role player whose numbers in the playoffs also declined, while the No. 10 pick sits outside of what is a consensus top eight in next week's NBA Draft.
Luke Duffy at Valley of the Suns gave Phoenix an 'F' for the trade, labelling it catastrophic and embarrassing. It's hard to disagree with that, particularly when you consider the Suns future and the fact their draft capital remains in other hands.
The Warriors were desperate enough to give the Suns a reasonable path out of the Durant business in February, but player empowerment again got in the way and forced Phoenix into submission on what's now a devastating return for a still very great player.