June 23, 2025 • 12 mins
Kevin Durant is headed to Houston! The return to land the future Hall of Fame forward? Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, the No. 10 pick and five second-round picks. The trade can be formally completed when the new league year begins July 6, but everyone is talking about it being a done deal. Wex and AC break down their thoughts on KD's arrival in H-Town!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
We've got breaking news out of the NBA where Kevin
Durant is headed too, the Houston Rocket. If you wanted
the critique Houston, he was they couldn't score in a
half court.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
They just got one of the best to ever score
in the half court in Kevin Durant. Been able to
kind of dictate what you want to do and then
bean with a team that values you and I'm looking
forward to him.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
He elevates them to championship status. This they got a
shot to win it all.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
They asked me where I wanted to go some of
my destinations. I gave it to him. Mate, here we are.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Kill me and Fatida is ecstatic. Email you, dope is ecstatic.
I'm trying to tell you they love it. They are
incredibly happy about it.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
You wouldn't know it, but Kevin Durant's a rocket.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
That is the a team. Sports Suck seven ninety Monday
edition of the show. Yeah, slightly big news from over
the weekend. Now, we talked about this going into the weekend.
Not only would it be the final game of the
NBA season and we'll have thoughts on that obviously, but
(01:06):
we kind of figured that the week of the draft
Durant would find out his destination.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Yeah, well there's a deadline. How nice.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Well, I mean you the draft and there being picks
that the Phoenix Suns want to use in said draft.
It's it made this the case, Like, I don't think exactly,
this doesn't necessarily happen this way if that's not the
little the caveat that whatever.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
You want question. The unfortunate part is, I'm still pretty
sure Wednesday night, Adam Silver is going to say, with
the tenth pick in the NBA Draft, the Houston Rockets
select and he will name a player who probably won't
be very good, and he'll then be a Phoenix Sun
on July sixth. But yes, this was pretty pretty exciting news.
(01:54):
I think for people one way or the other. We're
ready to take your thoughts on it. You guys have
heard a lot of from us already, even though we
have not yet been on air. Each of the last
two shows had four hours worth of time to spend
with you, plus the time we all sortiedly spent on
social media with you. Looking at the future for the Rockets,
looking at the future for the Suns, because it still
matters to the Rockets what the future of the Phoenix
(02:16):
Suns is the Suns got the tenth pick in the
draft this year back from Houston, but they still have
remaining responsibilities to pay off to Houston from previous trades
in twenty seven and twenty nine. So the future of
the Suns is definitely something that the Rockets are interested in.
But Kevin Durant is going to be a Houston Rocket
(02:37):
moving forward. The date we mentioned, due to Jalen Green's contract,
one of the particulars in the deal eliminates the possibility
of the announcement coming before the new league year begins.
We do have the NBA Draft Wednesday and Thursday, we
will have the opening of the new league year and
free agency shortly after that, and when that comes to
pass on July sixth, it will all be made official.
(02:58):
Kevin Durant, obviously, as you all know I now, was
part of a rather large event this past weekend over
in New York City and was right there in front
of the people to awkwardly answer some questions about his future. Again,
because the official nature of it to everybody involved from
an organizational standpoint pretty much precludes them from saying anything.
His position a little bit different. He and his agent
(03:20):
clearly got the news or made sure the news would
come to them, uh that Saturday or that Sunday morning, yesterday.
They were able to share it with each other. They
were able to share it with a lot of other people.
And we'll get to share that with you, our thoughts,
your thoughts, the future of the Rockets. Has it changed
course in any way to you, whether for the positive
(03:42):
or for the negative seven one three two one two
five seven nine. It will be taking your thoughts all
throughout the day, both there on the phone lines and
of course via social media. If you want to hit
us up at Adam J. Wexler, at Adam Clinton, or
at mister Cole Thompson. The A team is here for
you on that front. We'll start this way before we
get an everything else happened this past weekend, because it
was packed full of things. We need to get into
(04:05):
some from the other coast out in LA. But initial thoughts,
since we spent about three weeks wondering if the Rockets
would be willing to part with some part of their core,
if they were truly in on thinking Kevin Durant as
a rocket makes them better because teams don't make this
move unless they think that. And Phoenix obviously made this
move for the longer term, but they think it's a
(04:25):
good move for them, and merely more concerned about what
do you think? So I ask of you ac the
initial reaction, if you didn't already catch it from stone
Cold yesterday in his truck.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Yeah, why did everybody think that? I was gonna say?
And that's the bottom line.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
I guess they haven't seen enough of your personal when
I'm not at work, postings from all the other things
you do. Hang out at the pool, go run Errand's
on the weekend, go to concerts, eat food, typical stuff.
You might see him dressed like a regular old person
every now and then.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
I'm gonna start wearing a leather vest to work. No,
I feel more strongly about what I said in my
truck yesterday than I did then, And like you know,
that was I allowed myself at least a half hour
or so to digest the knee jerk reactions. And as
a knee jerk guy, especially when it comes to the
(05:17):
local baseball team, much to the chagrin of my co host,
I understand you initially see five of any kind of
draft pick, and if you're any sort of like non
die Hard or not a talk show host who talks
about this kind of stuff on a daily basis. You're like, whoa,
what five draft picks for a thirty seven year old
Kevin Durant be like, there are layers to this, obviously,
(05:40):
there are levels to this. Look further, they're what we
always talk about here on the show, and Wex does
a good job of kind of painting that picture. They're
second rounders, i e. They are currency. They are not
going to be players that in all likelihood are going
to be any sort of you know, substantive anything for
(06:00):
your team, especially on a win now because that's what
this is about. A win now team, a win now organization.
You don't make this move unless you are and Vegas
reflects that, by the way, And we'll get into all
this stuff, but I just I.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Look, first thought about this deal was they added five
second round picks to this.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Well, no, My first reaction to people who were reacting like, oh,
we gave up too much, Like, what are you talking about?
You gave up Jalen Green. You had to give up
something of value to me. Dylan Brooks is more about
salary than anything else. He makes a chunk of money,
and the only way you were going to be able
to make this deal and not give up all those
(06:39):
picks and not give up all the rest of your
young core and get the money to match is if
you threw in either Fred van Vliet or Dylan Brooks's
salary along with the guy who everybody knew you were
going to trade. Basically from the moment that you signed
Alpria and Shingun to a five year extension and only
signed Jalen to a three year extension, neither of which
were max dollars, it was like, Okay, this is a
(07:02):
sink or swim season. If Jalen Green takes that next step, great,
he's under contract and it's not ridiculous money. He did
for the regular season, and then we all saw what
happened in the playoffs. I'm not saying Jalen Green got
traded for Kevin Durant because he only scored thirty eight
points one time and scored in single digits twice the
other six games. But I am saying it didn't help
(07:23):
his cause and it's a big reason why he finds
himself honestly in limbo today. Because I'm not convinced he
doesn't get rerouted at some point over the next few weeks.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Yeah, my first thought was, like I said earlier in
the week. Last week when we were doing shows, you
got Kevin Durant. I never really had to go so
far as saying, but you had to give this up
because I never expect the Rocks to do that. I
felt pretty confident knowing what they want, how they operate,
what they think about their team, and the fact they
would not knee jerk after one playoff series for a
men Thompson, one playoff series for Alprin Shangoon and Jabari
(07:55):
Smith Junior and Tari Easton and Jalen Green and on
down the line that they still believed and it was
the premise that I made throughout the week last several weeks,
right after their playoff series ended, point blank, they're in
a good position no matter what they do. They would
have to make an insanely bad trade to make themselves worse,
which obviously I think they're smarter then and did not
do that here. If they do nothing, they're in a
(08:16):
good position to win next year. The second best team
in the Western Conference on Saturday was arguably the Houston Rockets.
You could have argued some other teams like Minnesota and
maybe Denver, the second best team in the Western Conference
today on Monday. Unofficially, you definitely have to include the
Houston Rockets. It's okay if you still think Minnesota or
(08:37):
Denver has a better chance than Houston. Vegas does not.
Vegas doesn't know everything, and they've never seen Kevin Durant
play in a Rockets uniform.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Neither have we.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
But that was my first thought, is you gave up
what I thought was a respectable amount. You look at
the young core you want to see get better, and
you get to watch them all do it in a
Rockets uniform except for one player. You can't get Kevin
Durant for nothing.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
I know.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
It seemed like you were almost going to be able
to get them for nothing. And there were other teams
bidding on his services and offering nothing, and that's why
they don't have him, and it is why the Rockets
do have him. They didn't offer nothing. I don't think
this deal is quite as bad for Phoenix as many
others do. I also think they could reroute both of
these players, maybe not immediately, but I could certainly see
(09:19):
forty good games from Dylan Brooks forty five to fifty
games until the trade deadline, when if there has not
been any new deal for him, and I don't expect
there will be, he could technically get an extension from them.
I don't believe that will be the case, so it
would lay this out at the trade deadline. He's done
what he always does for Memphis, then for Houston, now
for Phoenix. Provides what a really good team needs to win.
(09:42):
He can't do that in Phoenix, the winning part, but
the thing he has done for both of his last
two teams, there's no reason he won't do those things
for Phoenix. So why wouldn't a good team, if they
can make the money work, be someone interested in adding
Dylan Brooks sometime in the next several months. It's in
Jalen Green's case, it's more about fit. There's no reason
(10:03):
for a team like Phoenix to not want Jalen Green
except their particular team has only two expensive players. They
both play the two guard. They can't really outfit a
competitive team. I don't think with all three of them
still on their roster, I don't know what means they
trade any one of them before the season begins. One
of them they just got, one of them isn't going
(10:23):
to be moved, and the other one has an enormous contract.
I'll say it again, like I said last week, Bradley
Beal's individual offensive numbers were actually extremely good last year.
Somehow he didn't help them win. He doesn't play any defense.
I know that's part of the answer to somehow, but
it's his contract that prevents him from being moved. He's
not over the hills an I can't play any more player,
(10:47):
but he is very difficult to move. And again this
matters to Houston. If Phoenix finally decides once and for
all to stop competing for the eleventh spot, which is
maybe where they're targeting right now, which is still good
for Houston. Down the road, they could send themselves into
a different direction. Don't have their pick for next year
or their own, but after that two of the next
three years they have control of the Phoenix Suns pick,
(11:10):
which also means they could move those picks somewhere else
to help this year's team if they so choose. But
yet initial thought was really simple. They didn't give up
too much. I don't see how they're going in the
wrong direction. They have plenty of defensive mindset players to
move forward with. And as I said last night on
Sports Sunday, both Adam and I were there. I think
(11:32):
the pressure is obviously on the new player. He's going
to the Hall of Fame. He came here to win.
There is some pressure on Kevin Durant, especially as he's
team hopped his way out of Oklahoma City multiple times,
but there should be pressure on everybody else to the
same degree. They cannot win if Amen Thompson doesn't get better,
(11:53):
they cannot win. If alprin Atari and Jabbari and on
down the line, and Cam and Reid don't get better,
don't make a difference. How about if I told you
they just traded for Kevin Durant, Cam wentmore and reed Shepherd,
because that's basically what they did. If they're all three
Rockets next year
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Yeah, the ad on Sports Talk seven ninety
We've got breaking news out of the NBA where Kevin
Durant is headed too, the Houston Rocket. If you wanted
the critique Houston, he was they couldn't score in a
half court.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
They just got one of the best to ever score
in the half court in Kevin Durant. Been able to
kind of dictate what you want to do and then
bean with a team that values you and I'm looking
forward to him.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
He elevates them to championship status. This they got a
shot to win it all.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
They asked me where I wanted to go some of
my destinations. I gave it to him. Mate, here we are.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Kill me and Fatida is ecstatic. Email you, dope is ecstatic.
I'm trying to tell you they love it. They are
incredibly happy about it.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
You wouldn't know it, but Kevin Durant's a rocket.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
That is the a team. Sports Suck seven ninety Monday
edition of the show. Yeah, slightly big news from over
the weekend. Now, we talked about this going into the weekend.
Not only would it be the final game of the
NBA season and we'll have thoughts on that obviously, but
(01:06):
we kind of figured that the week of the draft
Durant would find out his destination.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Yeah, well there's a deadline. How nice.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Well, I mean you the draft and there being picks
that the Phoenix Suns want to use in said draft.
It's it made this the case, Like, I don't think exactly,
this doesn't necessarily happen this way if that's not the
little the caveat that whatever.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
You want question. The unfortunate part is, I'm still pretty
sure Wednesday night, Adam Silver is going to say, with
the tenth pick in the NBA Draft, the Houston Rockets
select and he will name a player who probably won't
be very good, and he'll then be a Phoenix Sun
on July sixth. But yes, this was pretty pretty exciting news.
(01:54):
I think for people one way or the other. We're
ready to take your thoughts on it. You guys have
heard a lot of from us already, even though we
have not yet been on air. Each of the last
two shows had four hours worth of time to spend
with you, plus the time we all sortiedly spent on
social media with you. Looking at the future for the Rockets,
looking at the future for the Suns, because it still
matters to the Rockets what the future of the Phoenix
(02:16):
Suns is the Suns got the tenth pick in the
draft this year back from Houston, but they still have
remaining responsibilities to pay off to Houston from previous trades
in twenty seven and twenty nine. So the future of
the Suns is definitely something that the Rockets are interested in.
But Kevin Durant is going to be a Houston Rocket
(02:37):
moving forward. The date we mentioned, due to Jalen Green's contract,
one of the particulars in the deal eliminates the possibility
of the announcement coming before the new league year begins.
We do have the NBA Draft Wednesday and Thursday, we
will have the opening of the new league year and
free agency shortly after that, and when that comes to
pass on July sixth, it will all be made official.
(02:58):
Kevin Durant, obviously, as you all know I now, was
part of a rather large event this past weekend over
in New York City and was right there in front
of the people to awkwardly answer some questions about his future. Again,
because the official nature of it to everybody involved from
an organizational standpoint pretty much precludes them from saying anything.
His position a little bit different. He and his agent
(03:20):
clearly got the news or made sure the news would
come to them, uh that Saturday or that Sunday morning, yesterday.
They were able to share it with each other. They
were able to share it with a lot of other people.
And we'll get to share that with you, our thoughts,
your thoughts, the future of the Rockets. Has it changed
course in any way to you, whether for the positive
(03:42):
or for the negative seven one three two one two
five seven nine. It will be taking your thoughts all
throughout the day, both there on the phone lines and
of course via social media. If you want to hit
us up at Adam J. Wexler, at Adam Clinton, or
at mister Cole Thompson. The A team is here for
you on that front. We'll start this way before we
get an everything else happened this past weekend, because it
was packed full of things. We need to get into
(04:05):
some from the other coast out in LA. But initial thoughts,
since we spent about three weeks wondering if the Rockets
would be willing to part with some part of their core,
if they were truly in on thinking Kevin Durant as
a rocket makes them better because teams don't make this
move unless they think that. And Phoenix obviously made this
move for the longer term, but they think it's a
(04:25):
good move for them, and merely more concerned about what
do you think? So I ask of you ac the
initial reaction, if you didn't already catch it from stone
Cold yesterday in his truck.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Yeah, why did everybody think that? I was gonna say?
And that's the bottom line.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
I guess they haven't seen enough of your personal when
I'm not at work, postings from all the other things
you do. Hang out at the pool, go run Errand's
on the weekend, go to concerts, eat food, typical stuff.
You might see him dressed like a regular old person
every now and then.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
I'm gonna start wearing a leather vest to work. No,
I feel more strongly about what I said in my
truck yesterday than I did then, And like you know,
that was I allowed myself at least a half hour
or so to digest the knee jerk reactions. And as
a knee jerk guy, especially when it comes to the
(05:17):
local baseball team, much to the chagrin of my co host,
I understand you initially see five of any kind of
draft pick, and if you're any sort of like non
die Hard or not a talk show host who talks
about this kind of stuff on a daily basis. You're like, whoa,
what five draft picks for a thirty seven year old
Kevin Durant be like, there are layers to this, obviously,
(05:40):
there are levels to this. Look further, they're what we
always talk about here on the show, and Wex does
a good job of kind of painting that picture. They're
second rounders, i e. They are currency. They are not
going to be players that in all likelihood are going
to be any sort of you know, substantive anything for
(06:00):
your team, especially on a win now because that's what
this is about. A win now team, a win now organization.
You don't make this move unless you are and Vegas
reflects that, by the way, And we'll get into all
this stuff, but I just I.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Look, first thought about this deal was they added five
second round picks to this.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Well, no, My first reaction to people who were reacting like, oh,
we gave up too much, Like, what are you talking about?
You gave up Jalen Green. You had to give up
something of value to me. Dylan Brooks is more about
salary than anything else. He makes a chunk of money,
and the only way you were going to be able
to make this deal and not give up all those
(06:39):
picks and not give up all the rest of your
young core and get the money to match is if
you threw in either Fred van Vliet or Dylan Brooks's
salary along with the guy who everybody knew you were
going to trade. Basically from the moment that you signed
Alpria and Shingun to a five year extension and only
signed Jalen to a three year extension, neither of which
were max dollars, it was like, Okay, this is a
(07:02):
sink or swim season. If Jalen Green takes that next step, great,
he's under contract and it's not ridiculous money. He did
for the regular season, and then we all saw what
happened in the playoffs. I'm not saying Jalen Green got
traded for Kevin Durant because he only scored thirty eight
points one time and scored in single digits twice the
other six games. But I am saying it didn't help
(07:23):
his cause and it's a big reason why he finds
himself honestly in limbo today. Because I'm not convinced he
doesn't get rerouted at some point over the next few weeks.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Yeah, my first thought was, like I said earlier in
the week. Last week when we were doing shows, you
got Kevin Durant. I never really had to go so
far as saying, but you had to give this up
because I never expect the Rocks to do that. I
felt pretty confident knowing what they want, how they operate,
what they think about their team, and the fact they
would not knee jerk after one playoff series for a
men Thompson, one playoff series for Alprin Shangoon and Jabari
(07:55):
Smith Junior and Tari Easton and Jalen Green and on
down the line that they still believed and it was
the premise that I made throughout the week last several weeks,
right after their playoff series ended, point blank, they're in
a good position no matter what they do. They would
have to make an insanely bad trade to make themselves worse,
which obviously I think they're smarter then and did not
do that here. If they do nothing, they're in a
(08:16):
good position to win next year. The second best team
in the Western Conference on Saturday was arguably the Houston Rockets.
You could have argued some other teams like Minnesota and
maybe Denver, the second best team in the Western Conference
today on Monday. Unofficially, you definitely have to include the
Houston Rockets. It's okay if you still think Minnesota or
(08:37):
Denver has a better chance than Houston. Vegas does not.
Vegas doesn't know everything, and they've never seen Kevin Durant
play in a Rockets uniform.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Neither have we.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
But that was my first thought, is you gave up
what I thought was a respectable amount. You look at
the young core you want to see get better, and
you get to watch them all do it in a
Rockets uniform except for one player. You can't get Kevin
Durant for nothing.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
I know.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
It seemed like you were almost going to be able
to get them for nothing. And there were other teams
bidding on his services and offering nothing, and that's why
they don't have him, and it is why the Rockets
do have him. They didn't offer nothing. I don't think
this deal is quite as bad for Phoenix as many
others do. I also think they could reroute both of
these players, maybe not immediately, but I could certainly see
(09:19):
forty good games from Dylan Brooks forty five to fifty
games until the trade deadline, when if there has not
been any new deal for him, and I don't expect
there will be, he could technically get an extension from them.
I don't believe that will be the case, so it
would lay this out at the trade deadline. He's done
what he always does for Memphis, then for Houston, now
for Phoenix. Provides what a really good team needs to win.
(09:42):
He can't do that in Phoenix, the winning part, but
the thing he has done for both of his last
two teams, there's no reason he won't do those things
for Phoenix. So why wouldn't a good team, if they
can make the money work, be someone interested in adding
Dylan Brooks sometime in the next several months. It's in
Jalen Green's case, it's more about fit. There's no reason
(10:03):
for a team like Phoenix to not want Jalen Green
except their particular team has only two expensive players. They
both play the two guard. They can't really outfit a
competitive team. I don't think with all three of them
still on their roster, I don't know what means they
trade any one of them before the season begins. One
of them they just got, one of them isn't going
(10:23):
to be moved, and the other one has an enormous contract.
I'll say it again, like I said last week, Bradley
Beal's individual offensive numbers were actually extremely good last year.
Somehow he didn't help them win. He doesn't play any defense.
I know that's part of the answer to somehow, but
it's his contract that prevents him from being moved. He's
not over the hills an I can't play any more player,
(10:47):
but he is very difficult to move. And again this
matters to Houston. If Phoenix finally decides once and for
all to stop competing for the eleventh spot, which is
maybe where they're targeting right now, which is still good
for Houston. Down the road, they could send themselves into
a different direction. Don't have their pick for next year
or their own, but after that two of the next
three years they have control of the Phoenix Suns pick,
(11:10):
which also means they could move those picks somewhere else
to help this year's team if they so choose. But
yet initial thought was really simple. They didn't give up
too much. I don't see how they're going in the
wrong direction. They have plenty of defensive mindset players to
move forward with. And as I said last night on
Sports Sunday, both Adam and I were there. I think
(11:32):
the pressure is obviously on the new player. He's going
to the Hall of Fame. He came here to win.
There is some pressure on Kevin Durant, especially as he's
team hopped his way out of Oklahoma City multiple times,
but there should be pressure on everybody else to the
same degree. They cannot win if Amen Thompson doesn't get better,
(11:53):
they cannot win. If alprin Atari and Jabbari and on
down the line, and Cam and Reid don't get better,
don't make a difference. How about if I told you
they just traded for Kevin Durant, Cam wentmore and reed Shepherd,
because that's basically what they did. If they're all three
Rockets next year
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Yeah, the ad on Sports Talk seven ninety
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