KEVIN DURANT TRADED TO SUNS

[SunsSince92]

I can't remember the last time I was simultaneously ecstatic and depressed about a Suns deal.

Haha, I'm exactly the same. I've been waiting for something to happen and had a hunch we'd get KD in the end, but giving up Bridges is a gut punch.

Hopefully we'll address our defensive shortcomings in a deal for Crowder, otherwise this feels like too big of a gamble.

Crowder is gone in this deal.

Oh wow, I hadn't clocked that! My bad.

[TOO]

Who else is crawl outta the woodwork? Lol

It seems not everyone forgot their own password.

[Singh]

Who else is crawl outta the woodwork? Lol

It seems not everyone forgot their own password.

Been lurking but not posting. Life been busy. Was sleeping and my phone tarted blowing up. Now I can't sleep lol

[Split T]

Melo doesn’t make as much sense anymore…he’s a body, but does he do anything better than TJ?

It seems our best lineup right now will be the obvious 4 plus TJ? Maybe Lee?

[Flagrant Fowl]

I really liked the Will Barton idea. He's not a corpse and plenty good enough for rotation playoff minutes.

[Superbone]

Gotta think KD is gonna come in with what's left of his hair on fire trying to show the world he's still him. Not sure how you stop the quadrant if Ayton is engaged.

Who's Ringo? Who's our 5th?

[Singh]

Probably gwt Duane back now also

[INFORMER]

Lol, we couldn't get them to take Landry Shamet?!

[JeremyG]

Who else is crawl outta the woodwork? Lol

It seems not everyone forgot their own password.

Been lurking but not posting. Life been busy. Was sleeping and my phone tarted blowing up. Now I can't sleep lol

I was literally falling asleep and like one minute away from putting my phone down. Now I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to sleep at all lol.

[Mori Chu]

Okay, my quick thoughts.

I actually think it's good that Mikal is going out rather than Ayton. There, I said it. I know Ayton is frustrating as hell. But having another dominant scorer like Durant will allow us to rely less on Ayton as a go-to scorer, which doesn't come as naturally to him. He'll still get points off P&R and rebounds and put-backs and the occasional inside play etc., but we won't run offense through him. And he can focus more on defense and rebounding, which he actually can do quite well when he chooses to do so. A trade focused around Ayton for KD might seem to make more sense on paper, but I was worried that we'd lose the ability to guard the league's best centers. Ayton for all his faults actually does some of his best work against Jokic, Embiid, and other prominent centers.

And, while I loved (LOVED) Mikal, you just can't compare him to a guy like KD. Mikal was having an amazing month of basketball, but I was worried that he'd regress to the mean. His shot and overall offense have always been iffy. Loved the strides he made this season, but I wasn't sure it would be something sustainable that we could count on. Maybe he'll prove me wrong, but there's just no comparison between Mikal and one of the best scorers in NBA history.

And, okay, I'll go there: I wondered whether Mikal's defense had become a bit overrated. Game to game he was a great defender, but then in the playoffs we'd put the other team's best scorer on him and that scorer would still go out and get 30-40 points. Specifically last year in the Mavs series, Mikal just absolutely could not stop Luka. Luka is one of the best scorers in the league, I get it, but the famed "Mikal jail" couldn't contain him at all. I think what Durant gives us is more valuable than the incrementally better defense Mikal brought.

The four 1sts are tough to swallow. All completely unprotected. We'll be feeling that for a while. I hope the team doesn't just give up on the draft given how top-heavy we're going to be for a few years. I'm not very sad about losing Crowder (obviously), nor Cam Johnson, because I think we probably would have lost Cam over money this summer anyway. So to me the only real long-term assets we give up are Mikal and the picks. And at least a couple of those picks should be about #28 if the trade works out for us.

We've become an older team. Both KD and CP3 have already seen their best days. I do worry a little bit that we may struggle with injuries. But let's hope we get a few healthy seasons out of this core to make runs at the title. And we do have our younger core guys in Book, Ayton, Landale to carry us to the next generation.

Bottom line is, before this trade I don't think we had any realistic chance at a title. Now, if healthy, I think the Suns are now the best team in the West.

WOW.

[Superbone]

Gotta think KD is gonna come in with what's left of his hair on fire trying to show the world he's still him. Not sure how you stop the quadrant if Ayton is engaged.

Ayton is now more important than ever before...

I hope Jeremy is up for it.

[INFORMER]

Probably gwt Duane back now also

I don't know. I think Monty would rather play 4 on 5.

[Superbone]

It’s just too bad that the homegrown team couldn’t quite get it done.

Trying to take the CP3 express train didn't help...

It almost did.

[Split T]

Who else is crawl outta the woodwork? Lol

It seems not everyone forgot their own password.

Been lurking but not posting. Life been busy. Was sleeping and my phone tarted blowing up. Now I can't sleep lol

I was literally falling asleep and like one minute away from putting my phone down. Now I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to sleep at all lol.

I was asleep and woke up..just decided to glance at my phone and saw 9 tweet notifications…knew something went down

[Flagrant Fowl]

Who else is crawl outta the woodwork? Lol

It seems not everyone forgot their own password.

Been lurking but not posting. Life been busy. Was sleeping and my phone tarted blowing up. Now I can't sleep lol

I was literally falling asleep and like one minute away from putting my phone down. Now I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to sleep at all lol.

I was asleep and woke up..just decided to glance at my phone and saw 9 tweet notifications…knew something went down

Literally my worst nightmare for the past 3 days. This all went down at 3pm here and it was a fever dream.

[Singh]

Need to speak og for Landry and Dario into existence

[INFORMER]

I hope Book really appreciates this.

[JeremyG]

You all are forgetting something. KD is *currently* injured. So in the short term we are terribly short handed again. Especially with Book out Thursday night. Yikes. Lol.

[Singh]

The hate we are receiving from rival fans on Twitter is refreshing

[Split T]

Just please please give us 1 fully healthy KD/Book playoff run.