The Kevin Durant trade that is already a done deal
Full explanation here in the Tuesday Newsletter Extravaganza on the transaction MADE by Durant and business manager Rich Kleiman
This news, I suspect, escaped your attention during a wild opening weekend in the NBA playoffs.
It was plenty layered, though, in itself:
Kevin Durant just made a trade.
A trade that also, at least tangentially, involved Shawn Marion and Rip Hamilton.
Amid no shortage of leaguewide wonderment about the future Hall of Famer's future in Phoenix and how much longer he'll remain a Sun, Durant and business partner Rich Kleiman shook up the pickleball world Saturday when they swapped franchise naming rights with the D.C. Pickleball Team in the nation's capital.
Durant and Kleiman previously co-owned Major League Pickleball's Brooklyn Aces. Durant, though, is among the most famed sporting representatives from the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. The trade thus enabled Durant and Kleiman to take charge of The DMV's Major League Pickleball franchise.
Yet there was no shortage of NBA connections on the other side of the deal. The Aces, now to be known as the Brooklyn Pickleball Team, feature an ownership group led by Al Tylis and former NBA agent-turned-sports franchisee Sam Porter and includes Marion, Hamilton and a slew of celebrity notables ... from Eva Longoria to Justin Verlander and Kate Upton to Odell Beckham Jr. to Mesut Özil.
As for Durant's NBA trade outlook ...
This lengthy recent Substack note (click it for the full scroll) addressed the incessant links between the Houston Rockets and the Suns:
Phoenix undoubtedly (and badly) wants the Rockets to want Durant to try to get back some of the Suns' precious draft capital that Houston controls: Namely first-round picks in 2027 and 2029 as well as first-round swap rights in this June's draft. Yet the Rockets' messaging all season has been consistent: When they do make their next big-swing trade, in the offseason or otherwise, they prefer to target players closer in age to their current core players.
Minnesota, New York, Miami and San Antonio rank as the most frequently cited potential Durant suitors. League sources, in particular, have been pinpointing the Timberwolves and Knicks depending on how their postseasons play out.
I don't expect the Rockets to join that group, but I also know that the KD-to-Houston talk is unlikely to fade irrespective of the forecasting here.
Either way?
A pickleball devotee like me couldn't resist talking about the Durant trade that is already a done deal.
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Aggregation Aggravation (CONT’)
In a tremendous recent piece on the Nuggets enclosed below,
Jake Fischer wrote the following sentence: "Sources with knowledge of Denver's thinking have maintained for some time that they struggled to envision ownership ever approving a deal that would send Porter away from the franchise."Key words: Struggled to envision.
Of course, once it was aggregated, this became: REPORT! Denver will never, ever trade Michael Porter Jr. because ownership won't allow it.
Never said any such thing.
The internal unraveling of the Denver Nuggets ... and where the 2022-23 champs go from here
The writing was on the wall on Monday. That's when members of Denver's front office learned that Nuggets operating owner Josh Kroenke and his father Stan would be joining the team in Sacramento for Wednesday's game against the Kings. A four-game losing streak had not only sent Denver tumbling down the Western Conference standings, but each bumpy rung on that ladder only amplified the long-running discord between general manager Calvin Booth and head coach Michael Malone.
As The Stein Line has written on more than one occasion this season, by contrast, Porter is indeed an organizational favorite for many reasons. My personal failing, from an editing perspective, was not spelling out more clearly that there are reasons with an S to explain that status ... not merely his shared alma mater of Missouri with operating owner Josh Kroenke and Kroenke's father Stan.
Here is Josh Kroenke's full statement on the topic, which came early last week — two days after the piece ran — at a news conference he held with Denver-based reporters:
If the Nuggets are no longer as reluctant to consider including Porter in trade constructions as they've been in the past, that would certainly increase Denver's roster-building optionality this summer no matter how its playoff run ends. The Nuggets barely came away from the first two games at home with a 1-1 split against the surging LA Clippers … with Porter losing fourth-quarter and overtime minutes to Russell Westbrook in Game 1 and sustaining a shoulder injury in Game 2.
Chatter Box
Links to some recent podcasts you might have missed …
Included in my four weekly visits on the DLLS Mavs show for DLLS Sports was our episode last Tuesday shortly after Nico Harrison's media session with a small invite-only group of reporters — but no cameras allowed — that proved to be the most-watched show in the network's eight-month history:
And catch Monday's Instant Reaction to Harrison's traditional season-ending news conference — with cameras — here:
And here is my visit last Friday with the CHGO Bulls team after Chicago's season ended with a Play-In loss to Miami for the third season in a row:
Also!
I narrate the introductions for three expertly curated NBA podcast clips every week on a show called NBA Now on the Hark Audio app. Download the app or click the link embedded in this sentence to check it out.
And remember: One click gets you subscribed to the DLLS Sports YouTube page to stay abreast of my four weekly appearances there.
Photo Fun
My pal Ronald Martinez, on this very biased scorecard, took the clutchest picture of his career roughly 25 years ago when I hurriedly asked him just before the opening tip of a Sixers-at-Mavericks game if he would be OK with taking a picture of me standing alongside Philadelphia's Bruce Bowen, Dallas' Cedric Ceballos and NBA referee Leon Wood.
I'm not sure I can put into words how much that photo, in the days before smartphones, meant to me personally — as the No. 1 Cal State Fullerton basketball fan on this planet — to sneak onto the Reunion Arena hardwood alongside the three most decorated players in school history.
But that thoroughly selfish perspective is a disservice to Martinez, who is one of the finest photographers in #thisleague.
Which he proved yet again with this clutchly timed shot of Minnesota's Anthony Edwards uncorking a Spider-Man celebration in Luka Dončić's direction Saturday night that had all of NBA Twitter talking:
Hard pass on Durant for Spurs. He’s a stud and he’d definitely help. But Suns are looking for a lifebuoy and at that cost it would be prudent to pass. If the market price is different and all it takes is Vassell and one first, then sure, let’s roll. KD can also be pickleball king of South Texas
Boy that headline got me to click on the story. After reading how meaningless it was I wish I hadn’t read it. Shame on me for being a sucker.