The Phoenix Suns got pulled into the madness around the Mikal Bridges trade to the New York Knicks on Tuesday night. After the initial shock of the deal that saw the Knicks send Bojan Bogdanovic and a ton of draft capital to the Brooklyn Nets, another trade between the Nets and the Houston Rockets led to a report from Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN that the Rockets had their eyes on acquiring Kevin Durant from the Suns.
That talk cooled off not long after, but the following morning, Stephen A. Smith went onto First Take and reported that the Suns want to get out of the Durant business entirely, going as far as to say that the team wants to do a deal “right now.” It was a pretty wild report, but a little later in the day on Wednesday, Suns owner Mat Ishbia took to Twitter and responded to Smith’s report by saying that Phoenix wants to keep Durant around, while Durant wants to stay in Phoenix.
NBA Draft night is the best. Everyone talking about the drama and storylines, some are right and some are just wrong.
My turn. Phoenix loves Kevin Durant and Kevin Durant loves Phoenix, and we are competing for a championship this year because we have the team to do it. Gotta…— Mat Ishbia (@Mishbia15) June 26, 2024
Durant’s longtime agent and business partner Rich Kleiman hopped into the replies and had a simple, one-word response to Ishbia.
Truth
— Ace (@richkleiman) June 26, 2024
Obviously, no one closely connected to the Suns or Durant are going to go onto Twitter and go “hey everyone, we hope the Suns trade Kevin Durant ASAP, thanks!” Having said that, it sure would be something if Ishbia and Kleiman went this public and Durant got moved soon after, so we assume off of this that he’s going to stick around.