In the aftermath of the end of the Kevin Durant sweepstakes, the post-mortem details of what did and did not happen are coming in abundance. And it turns out that the Cleveland Cavaliers may have been in the running for him after all.
Speaking on his eponymous The Kevin O’Connor Show, Kevin O’Connor of Yahoo! Sports reports that the Cavaliers had had conversations with the Phoenix Suns about acquiring Durant, and dangled quite the carrot. According to O’Connor, the Cavaliers supposedly offered point guard Darius Garland in the negotiations process, a carrot it seems hard to believe that the Suns did not bite on.
Cavaliers, Objectively, Are A Good Team
Although their playoff run ended earlier than many anticipated, the Cavaliers had an excellent season. They were the comfortable first seed in the Eastern Conference with a 64-18 regular season record, posting the league’s best offence along with a top-1o defence, led by Defensive Player of the Year award winner Evan Mobley. They are fairly young, balanced, deep, and good.
Garland’s play was a big part of why that was. In the regular season, he averaged 20.6 points and 6.7 assists per game in slightly over 30 minutes per contest, forming an extremely potent backcourt 1-2 punch alongside Donovan Mitchell.
Although Garland will require several months to recover from toe surgery, which may spill into the next regular season, nothing about that will matter after the recovery is complete. He is a two-time All-Star, a nightly 20-point per game scorer, a game-winner, and still only 25 years old.
In short, Garland is better than Jalen Green, the centrepiece of the returning package that the Suns eventually accepted for Durant. It therefore begs the question of why the Rockets took the Green-based deal.
Durant’s Desired Mattered
Ultimately, Durant will be dealt to the Houston Rockets, who are also fairly young, balanced, deep, and good. The two teams were in similar situations, where they are excellent regular-season teams needing a bit of veteran wisdom to get over the line in the postseason, without giving up too much of what makes them good to get it. Durant, the rare available and meaningful 37-year-old, offered that.
Durant, it would appear, was pushing to go to the Rockets. Technically, he did not have the ability to decide where he would be traded to, but in practice, a combination of player power and respect gave him the final say. If he wanted Houston and not the Cavaliers, the Suns may have felt that their hands were forced. The addition of the #10 pick in the Rockets’ package is also a factor – in a world where the late lottery picks can yield the game’s best, the pick gives the Suns a chance of an immediate and significant talent infusion, or at least the appearance of one.
Nonetheless, few will dispute the fact that the Suns did not get a great package for the man they gave up so much to acquire. And if they truly did have an offer of a 25-year-old two-time All-Star who plays a position of need, it is hard to understand why such an offer never made it far in negotiations.
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