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Despite heavy rumblings that the Phoenix Suns may look to drastically alter their roster at this year's trade deadline, including a potential Kevin Durant trade, the team ended up doing nothing of note outside of dealing Jusuf Nurkic. The Suns will now play out the rest of their season with their big three of Durant, Bradley Beal, and Devin Booker still intact, hoping to improve on last year's first-round playoff sweep.
Some were wondering why the Suns' brass didn't try harder to make a big shakeup at the deadline, and ESPN's Shams Charania recently shed some light on that perspective, per SportsCenter on X, formerly Twitter.
“They want to see how this team looks for the rest of the season,” said Charania. “Kevin Durant did not expect his name to be in any trade rumors. He has not requested a trade out of Phoenix this season, from my understanding, and was blindsided by even being involved in any conversations.”
Charania then spoke on what the Suns' offseason approach might be if things don't go according to plan this spring.
“I am also told there will be a full evaluation of this team if they are not able to turn it around by the offseason,” said Charania.
The Suns play it safe
Rather than doing something drastic by trading their best player in Durant, the Suns instead decided to stand pat with (mostly) the same roster they've had for the last two seasons and hope that the additional time will allow for better results in the upcoming postseason.
Of course, in order to have good results in the postseason, you have to get there first, which is by no means a guarantee for Phoenix at the current juncture. The Suns currently sit with a record of 25-25, good for tenth place in the vaunted Western Conference, and have now lost three straight games since their road win over the Golden State Warriors.
In any case, the Suns' first game after the trade deadline will occur on Friday evening when they host the Utah Jazz. That game will tip off at 10:00 PM ET.
