When Kevin Durant requested a trade on June 30 and listed the Miami Heat and Phoenix Suns as his preferred destinations, it forced both franchises to examine what they could do to acquire the future Hall of Famer. For the Heat, in order to bring in Durant it would likely require the team to trade All-Star forward Bam Adebayo, who would fit the Brooklyn Nets' criteria of wanting to receive players that would make them competitive right now.
When Kevin Durant asked for a trade during June, he likely expected to get one relatively quickly. The Nets appeared willing to cooperate with his request after a tumultuous season that they do not appear interested in repeating. A player of his caliber should have commanded a number of enormous offers for Brooklyn to sift through before ultimately settling on the best one.
The NBA has opened an investigation into the Philadelphia 76ers for potential tampering regarding the team's offseason free-agent singings of James Harden, P.J. Tucker and Danuel House Jr., according to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski. Harden's decision to turn down his $47 million player option for the 2022-23 season and re-sign at a lower number is at the center of the investigation as it afforded the Sixers the cap space necessary to sign Tucker and House.
When Monty Williams took over as head coach of the Phoenix Suns, they were in the middle of a decade-long lottery streak. Almost overnight, he managed to turn them into one of the NBA's very best teams. His debut season ended with an undefeated run in the Orlando bubble. He followed that up with a trip to the NBA Finals in 2021, and last season, he won Coach of the year as his Suns won 64 games before losing in the second round to the Dallas Mavericks. In three years on the job, he's done everything short of winning a championship. And now, the Suns are recognizing that.
Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo has committed to playing for the Greek national team at EuroBasket 2022 later this summer, Hellenic Basketball Federation president Vaggelis Liolios confirmed on Friday. In addition, Bucks assistant coach Josh Oppenheimer will join as an assistant coach.
A year ago, Collin Sexton looked like a potential max player. He'd just averaged 24.3 points per game in his third NBA season, and with Evan Mobley inbound, it wasn't hard to imagine him at the front of a Cavaliers renaissance. Instead, he suffered a torn meniscus and missed most of the season. Darius Garland supplanted him as Cleveland's primary ball-handler, and the Cavaliers made it back to the postseason without him.
If we've learned anything from Brian Windhorst's "What's going on in Utah?" monologue, it's that NBA transactions never occur in a vacuum. A Royce O'Neale trade is not just a Royce O'Neale trade. Many moves that seem strange make more sense after the next one. Some of the moves that haven't happened yet are on hold because the parties involved are waiting for others that haven't happened yet.
The 2022 NBA Draft is in the books, and free agency has slowed after a rapid start. Now, the next big item on the calendar is Summer League. This year, there are three different events -- two mini tournaments in San Francisco and Salt Lake City, and the big show in Las Vegas that features all 30 teams.
Ohio State forward E.J. Liddell slid all the way to the middle of the second round in last month's 2022 NBA Draft, but he still has a chance to make the league with the New Orleans Pelicans. Unfortunately, that task got much harder on Monday when he suffered a torn ACL in a Summer League game against the Atlanta Hawks, the team announced Tuesday.