Yeah, seriously, a seven-team trade.
The Athletic’s Fred Katz reported Wednesday night that the Houston Rockets’ Kevin Durant deal with the Phoenix Suns could expand into a seven-team bonanza.
The trade hasn’t been made official yet, which allows for this maneuvering, most of which would be done to move some salary around between various teams.
Katz reports that the involved teams with the Rockets and the Suns are the Atlanta Hawks, Brooklyn Nets, Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers and Minnesota Timberwolves.
“In a would-be seven-team trade, there is an unprecedented amount of detail,” Katz writes. “Unfortunately, while a seven-team trade would make for a thrilling topic at a cocktail party, there haven’t been many unexpected developments in these negotiations. At least in the iterations of the deal discussed so far, most of the recognizable names are from trades that have already been agreed to and reported but not yet finalized.”
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Here are more of the specifics from Katz:
“The Hawks would be sending Clint Capela to the Rockets in what would become a sign-and-trade, league sources say. Durant would go to Houston. The previously reported return for him, including Dillon Brooks and Jalen Green, would go to Phoenix. Only five players who were in the NBA last season are being discussed in the current iteration of the trade, as of now: Durant, Brooks, Green, Clint Capela and Daeqwon Plowden, league sources say. The rest of the players being discussed are all from already-agreed-upon draft-night trades that are yet to be finalized and can’t be until July 6.”
This would be the largest trade in NBA history.
Katz writes that the previous largest was a six-teamer last summer that ended with Klay Thompson in Dallas. There was a five-teamer in 2021 when Russell Westbrook went from the Lakers to the Wizards.
A deal like this helps teams consolidate assets most efficiently, but it’s unlikely between now and the trade crossing the line that there’d be anything added that we didn’t already know from previous reports.
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