The Phoenix Suns are going to trade Kevin Durant this summer. It's the worst-kept secret in sports. To which team? For whom? Those are questions we can't answer just yet, but Mat Ishbia doesn't seem like the type to sit on his hands while a team finishes below .500 with the heftiest cap sheet in league history.
Bradley Beal is immovable, so Phoenix is plumb out of alternatives unless Devin Booker decides he wants out. The Suns need to shed salary, improve flexibility, and recoup draft capital after years of purging long-term assets in a vain attempt to build around the KD-Booker duo. The only way to achieve what the Suns need to achieve is a Durant trade, whether they "want to" or not.
That puts roughly 29 NBA fanbases on Kevin Durant watch for the next few months. We all want Durant on our team. Even if the head says no, the heart says yes. He's one of this generation's greatest talents, and he's still a wonder to behold on the court. The list of more gifted individual scorers in NBA history is few and far between.
While we'd all love to see Durant on our team of choice, only a few teams actually have the assets and motivation to pull off a trade. That's why the sudden Boston Celtics speculation from Fox Sports' Nick Wright is... strange, to say the least.
Subscribe to The Whiteboard, FanSided's daily email newsletter on everything basketball. If you like The Whiteboard, share it with a friend. If you hate it, share it with an enemy!
Nick Wright cites sources who proclaim Celtics as potential Kevin Durant destination
"Two totally unrelated people, both of whom have reputations for knowing things that other people don't know, have said to me watch out for Durant in Boston," Wright said on FOX's First Things First.
"Two totally unrelated people, both of whom have reputations for knowing things that other people don't know, have said to me watch out for Durant in Boston"
— CelticsUnite (@CelticsUnite18) March 25, 2025
— Nick Wright 👀
pic.twitter.com/BbZjqpnvOS
The Suns are on the upswing at the right time, finally establishing some forward momentum as the playoffs — and the Play-In — come into view. Durant looks great, as he always does, so naturally teams are circling the wagons and preparing to unload the clip.
But Boston? That Boston? The reigning world champs with the deepest and most balanced roster in the East?
This just does not compute. What would the Celtics realistically give up here? Durant is on the books for $54.7 million next season. Boston has a full cap sheet of its own, so the salaries would need to be an exact match going both ways. Durant is great, but he's also 36-year-old approaching the final year of his contract and with a history of leaving teams high and dry. Would the perfectly-calibrated Celtics really want to bring such a volatile force into the building?
We can assume the Celtics aren't touching Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown, even if a Brown-Durant swap is a fun hypothetical. Boston has a much longer window with Brown. Kristaps Porzingis would surely appeal to the Suns, who need a defensive anchor, but color me skeptical. Boston knows how valuable Porzinigis' rim protection is. He's the centerpiece of a defense that dominated the 2024 playoffs. Durant is an offensive maestro and a fine defender at this stage of his career, but it's too risky a trade-off for Boston.
That leaves something like Jrue Holiday, Derrick White, and spare change for Durant. I'm sure the Suns would take at least a little interest — again, the goal is to swap Durant for more cost-controlled salaries and better depth — but Holiday and White are guards. Phoenix has Devin Booker and Bradley Beal in the building, plus Tyus Jones as a potential returner. The Suns don't really need more guards, even if Holiday and White would meaningfully elevate Phoenix's defensive profile.
I am not going to dispute the hypothetical fit here. Boston wins with math. They take and make more 3s than any other team in NBA history, a scheme Durant can certainly contribute to. But, there's too much downside. The Celtics are established contenders with a well-oiled, deeply connected locker room. It's just hard to imagine Brad Stevens blowing it up for a year of aging KD.
So, with all due respect to Nick Wright's in-the-know sources, I am writing this one off.