The biggest move that didn’t happen at the 2025 NBA trade deadline was Kevin Durant’s return to the Golden State Warriors.
For a night or so, it appeared the Phoenix Suns star was on the verge of being sent back to the team where he won two NBA championships in three years. The Warriors would have received Durant, the Phoenix Suns would have received Jimmy Butler from the Miami Heat and the Heat would have received some assorted assets.
The next morning, however, it was reported that Durant had no interest in going to Golden State, and the trade fell apart immediately. The Warriors and Heat pivoted with a trade that sent Butler to San Francisco.
The nature of Durant turning down a Warriors reunion led to plenty of speculation about the reason why. The man himself finally provided some clarity in an interview with ESPN that aired Tuesday, when he said the reason why wasn’t his critics or some animus with the Warriors organization.
He just didn’t want to move.
His full answer, via ESPN:
“People talk crazy about me all the time. That’s not the reason why I didn’t want to come back, I just didn’t want to get traded midway through the season. It was nothing against my time with the Warriors, or I heard because I don’t like Draymond [Green]. At the end of the day, I just didn’t want to move and I wanted to see it through with my team in Phoenix and see what we could do the rest of this season, so I’m glad I’m still there.”
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr had thrown out the fan criticism theory during the All-Star festivities at the Warriors’ Chase Center. Via ESPN, Kerr said he would understand why Durant didn’t want a repeat of what happened when he first joined the Warriors:
“I don’t blame Kevin one bit for not wanting to rerun things here,” Kerr, who coached Durant with Golden State and USA Basketball, told ESPN. “He took so much s*** for like, ‘Oh, you’re jumping on the bandwagon’ [when he signed with Golden State as a free agent in 2016]. And then he’s Finals MVP two years in a row. It’s like he still gets criticized.
“So why would he want to face all that B.S. again?”
The non-trade left Durant on a Suns team that holds a record of 26-28, currently 11th place in the Western Conference and out of the play-in tournament. They are a game and a half behind the 10th-place Warriors.
At age 36, Durant remains one of the NBA’s most effective scorers, but his Suns tenure alongside Devin Booker and Bradley Beal has so far added up to less than the sum of its parts. He has one year remaining on his current contract after this season.
