Stephen A Smith Insists The Suns ‘Want Out Of Kevin Durant Right Now’

The Brooklyn Nets and New York Knicks agreed to a shocking blockbuster trade on Tuesday night, agreeing to the first trade with each other since 1983 to send Mikal Bridges to Manhattan for Bojan Bogdanovic and five (5) first round picks. That signaled the Nets were ready to tank, but to do that, they needed to get control of their own picks back from Houston, who had the rights to Brooklyn’s 2025 and 2026 picks via the James Harden trade.

The Nets managed to get those picks back by sending the Rockets some of the future Suns picks they acquired for Kevin Durant, which could become very valuable if the Suns Big 3 attempt flames out. Adding to the intrigue of that deal was reporting from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski that the Rockets were interested in getting Kevin Durant themselves, and wanted to use the Suns own picks to entice them into a deal. He would later backtrack on that a bit, noting it was unlikely the Suns would part with KD and that, instead, the Rockets were more interested in a future push for Devin Booker, if things go the wrong way in Phoenix.

On Wednesday morning, Stephen A. Smith added a bit of color to that story with his own reporting, reading off something that was sent his way that agreed with Woj’s follow-up that Booker is who the Rockets are more interested in than KD — but insisted the Suns are, in fact, looking to deal Durant and “want out” of having the former MVP on the roster.

This is not the first time Smith has indicated the Suns are tired of the Durant experience. He previously made a similar note earlier this offseason, saying some in Phoenix were frustrated with Durant not taking on more of a leadership role. Now he’s doubling down on that. KD and Stephen A. have gone at it in the past and everyone always takes Smith’s reporting with a grain of salt, but he does know things and the ever-plugged in Brian Windhorst, also on the First Take panel this morning, didn’t seem to want to push back on this, instead simply saying “why do the Rockets do the deal, Molly?”

The Suns don’t have many avenues for making changes to their roster without giving up one of their stars, and we’ll have to see if Smith’s premonition on Durant ends up being correct.