After all the whispers going around about Kevin Durant and Giannis Antetokounmpo heading to the Toronto Raptors, it looks like Toronto will go 0-for-2 on trying to reel in a “big fish.”
According to Shams Charania, the interested teams in the two-time NBA Champion are the Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs, Minnesota Timberwolves, Miami Heat, and the New York Knicks.
Durant reportedly wants out of Phoenix after the Suns’ disappointing 36-46 record, which saw them miss the play-in tournament, finishing as the 11th seed in the Western Conference. Phoenix had assembled a superteam by pairing their homegrown star of Devin Booker with Durant and former Washington Wizard star Bradley Beal. The last two seasons haven’t worked out for Phoenix, and Beal has failed to hit the 20+ points per game mark in both seasons there for the first time since the 2015-16 season, when he was just 22 years of age.
Although Durant has spoken highly of the Toronto Raptors, as well as Scottie Barnes, and even stated that he was a big fan of the Vince Carter Raptors growing up, it would’ve been a tough ask to convince him to play for Toronto. The Raptors also finished as the 11th seed of the Eastern Conference and don’t have a true superstar to pair with Durant. All the interested teams as of now were playoff teams outside of the San Antonio Spurs, but the fact that they have Victor Wembanyama (who had the Spurs in the play-in fight before a season-ending injury) would make them more than intriguing should they come away with Kevin Durant.
Although Durant is turning 37 when the next basketball season rolls around, he still made his 15th All-Star appearance this past season and averaged 26.6 points, 6.0 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game. Durant still has one year left on his contract, which is worth $54,708,609.
