Each week during the 2024-25 NBA season, we will take a deeper dive into some of the league’s biggest storylines in an attempt to determine whether trends are based more in fact or fiction moving forward.
[Last week: The Thunder still lack ‘playoff scars’ to win it all]
Fact or Fiction: Kevin Durant to the Celtics just makes sense
New England Patriots legend Tom Brady joined a collection of Celtics, including Isaiah Thomas, Marcus Smart, Jae Crowder and Kelly Olynyk, for their July 2016 free-agent recruitment of Kevin Durant in the Hamptons. Days earlier, Boston had received a commitment from Al Horford, who embraced the team’s vision, which featured a horde of draft assets, one of which it had just used to select Jaylen Brown.
Durant joined the Golden State Warriors instead. Three years, two NBA championships and one dust-up later, Durant successfully recruited Kyrie Irving from the Celtics to the Brooklyn Nets in 2019 free agency.
There ended Boston’s dream of ever landing Durant in green. Or so we thought.
Three years after that, when he and Irving had tired of the Nets, each other or both, Durant requested a trade, and again the Celtics were reportedly among the suitors. They had just lost the 2022 NBA Finals.
According to Shams Charania, then of The Athletic, Boston offered Jaylen Brown, Derrick White and a draft pick in exchange for Durant in July 2022. Either that, or they had “not had any real discussions of substance with the Nets about Durant,” as The Boston Globe’s Adam Himmelsbach reported at the time.
It seems insane in retrospect if a) the Celtics ever made that offer and b) the Nets did not accept it.
Which brings us to 2025, nine years removed from 2016 free agency. FS1’s Nick Wright, who has been wrong about the Celtics before, reported: “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.'”
Maybe his sources were just giving him a heads-up about the Phoenix Suns’ game in Boston on Friday (which Durant will now miss with an ankle injury). They could also be rivals, stirring the pot, trying to irk Brown, who was peeved last time this happened.
Indeed, Durant’s time on the Suns appears to be coming to a close, and it does not take an insider to tell us why. They are a dumpster fire, and Durant has one year remaining on his contract after this season. He was nearly traded at this year’s deadline, when he declined the chance to reunite with the Warriors.
Charania listed the Miami Heat, Minnesota Timberwolves, New York Knicks, Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs — not the Celtics — as teams with whom Durant has mutual interest in a new partnership.
And for good reason. Durant will not be a Celtic next season, mostly because he can’t be one.
Both the Celtics and Suns are in the salary cap’s second apron, and teams in that position cannot a) aggregate salaries in a trade or b) take on more money in a deal than they are sending out. Under those constraints, the two sides actually cannot currently make a trade that would send Durant to Boston.
There are hoops through which both sides could jump. The Celtics can shed salaries, stripping themselves of their depth, for the chance to trade either Brown or multiple other players in exchange for Durant.
The first of those options rids the Celtics of not only their depth but the 29-year-old Finals MVP from their 2024 NBA championship run, in favor of a 37-year-old mercenary. He is one hell of a mercenary but still: Seems like a bad idea. There was a case to be made that trading Brown for Durant in 2022 was a bad idea, too, and the Celtics proved that to be true. They did not need him then; they do not need him now.
Brown means more to the Celtics and not just because he is a homegrown hero. His defensive ability gives Jayson Tatum the freedom to be a superstar-level predator on offense, the kind of player Durant is, only better (right now). Why, then, would Boston jump through hoops for the opportunity in a shorter window to figure out a new partnership between two superstars when the current setup already works?
Another avenue would pair Tatum and Brown with Durant. That would mean sacrificing everyone else of consequence on the roster for the right to pay that trio a combined $162 million next season — over the salary cap. They would still be trying to fill out a championship roster, with fewer options to build one.
Just ask the Suns, who have failed miserably in that regard. Or ask Durant, whose last two Big Threes have ended in disaster. And why would Phoenix want anything but Brown from the Celtics? Anyone else is a downgrade in talent, and Boston’s picks are sure to be stuck in the 20s for the foreseeable future.
And if dealing Brown for Durant was not insane three years ago, it certainly is now.
Determination: Fiction. Brady might have a better chance of playing for next year’s Celtics than Durant.
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