Kevin Durant isn't the player he once was, and that makes any potential deal tricky

Unless you’ve been living under a rock — in which case, why would you ever willingly do that? — the fate of Kevin Durant in Phoenix has been more or less settled for months now.

While no destination has been finalized, Durant and the Suns agreed to initiate divorce proceedings by working together on finding a trade.

ESPN reported things are picking up steam, and several teams appear interested in acquiring the services of Durant, including the Heat, Knicks, Rockets, Spurs and Timberwolves, with Miami, Houston and Minnesota reportedly preparing final offers as a deal could be imminent.

Some make more sense than others, and some only make sense if they are to get Durant on the cheap, and aren’t relinquishing a major chunk of their future.

This is where you might be wondering: Why wouldn’t teams fork over an avalanche of assets for Kevin Freaking Durant?!?!

And it’s a fair question. After all, Durant is unquestionably one of the greatest players of all time and possibly the best plug-and-play superstar in the history of basketball. But alas, nothing is that simple. Let’s break down some factors that add a layer of complexity to any KD deal.

Kevin Durant is still good, but he is no longer a basketball titan. (Photo by Chris Coduto/Getty Images)

(Chris Coduto via Getty Images)

Kevin Durant’s game is both fantastic and complicated

Accolades aside, Durant is about to turn 37 years old. While he remains almost unrealistically elite at that age, no one has any idea when a steep decline will occur. Durant is already slowing down, albeit slowly and gracefully, and his reliance on the long 2 — while still a genuine weapon, especially for him — isn’t as big of an asset as it once was.

While Durant hates criticism that centers around his pedestrian 3-point volume, it’s valid in today’s NBA to wonder why a player, who has continuously demonstrated that he can scale up as a shooter, just refuse do it. As he ages further, you’d think Durant would lean into the long-range shooting more, especially as a means to avoid injuries and prolong his success and career. After all, this is a player who is shooting 41.5% from 3 since 2020-21 — but on just five attempts per game

Yet, Durant plays like he always has. The midrange pull-up is a favorite, and he remains effective at getting to the line, where he’s still rock solid.

On the one hand, you can appreciate the consistency and the determination to keep doing what turned him into an all-time great. On the other, you wonder why he hasn’t adjusted more to today’s game and made life easier on himself, while also raising his ceiling for explosive performances.

KD’s trade value isn’t straightforward

For interested teams, you assume they want Durant based on his résumé and aren’t looking to reinvent him. Yet, every single one of those teams must also have had the conversation about his advanced age and discussed what their walk-away price is.

For a team like the Spurs, their walk-away price should be far lower than that of the Knicks, given that their long-term future, which is built around Victor Wembanyama, shouldn’t be sacrificed off a competitive two-year window.

For the Knicks, there is no such thing as a long-term future. They’re competing for a title now, and if they believe Durant helps them get there, they should be just fine giving up future assets to make that happen.

So it’s understandable why the Spurs are reportedly no longer in the running, but less so for the Knicks.

It also raises an overarching question, however, in terms of KD’s dynamic trade value, which differs from team to team: When does a player’s age begin to mean too much?

Let’s set aside the previous concerns about Durant’s game and instead focus on more concerning details.

He tore his Achilles in the 2019 NBA Finals and made a remarkable recovery, despite being 30 at the time. But ever since, he’s had just one season of playing 65-plus games, meaning availability is an issue.

Logic dictates that as a player gets older, his body is more inclined to break down, and that’s regardless of how well anyone takes care of himself — LeBron James excluded, as we’re getting awfully close to deeming him an actual alien. (Although, nagging injuries do appear to be finally creeping in for LeBron.)

As such, teams should consider, in their trade analysis, the possibility of Durant likely missing time and not being available to the same extent as before. Does that remove a first-round pick from the equation? Does it remove several?

That’s obviously up to each team to answer. But it should be a conversation — and an important one.

Overall, let’s make something perfectly clear. Durant is an enormous offensive weapon, even if he’s not as trigger-happy as he should be from the outside. He’ll be an asset anywhere he goes. But the cost of Durant shouldn’t be “whatever’s necessary” if you’re trying to position yourself for the future, and that future is a few years away.

For that matter, even teams that are closer to the Finals shouldn’t relinquish the farm just for the hell of it. As we saw this year in Phoenix, the mere presence of Durant no longer provides you with an automatic playoff berth as it used to.

The team that manages to get Durant into the fold, but maintains significant roster flexibility, is the team that gets it. But seeing as we’re likely in the middle of a bidding war, we could be looking at the acquiring team’s surrendered package and wondering if it was too much.

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