Scoring 42+43! You are still sold by the team if you average 26 points per game, and you may be difficult to win the championship in the future

After entering the finals of the NBA playoffs this year, the outside world generally prefers the former when the showdown between the Thunder and the Pacers. Although the Thunder G1 lost to the Pacers in an upset manner, from the whole game, they were playing against the Pacers most of the time, so even if they were behind 0-1, they still had a chance to win the championship. The reason why they are so confident in the Thunder is that this season's Thunder have shown their unique state since the regular season, so their total net wins also set a new record in the NBA history. Finally, after reaching the playoffs with the best 68 wins in the team history, the Thunder also reached the Finals invincible. The only thing that caused trouble to the Thunder in the entire West was the Nuggets. They once forced the former to tiebreaker in the second round, but in the end the Thunder advanced to the Western Conference Finals with a 32-point victory.

After the Thunder achieved their current results, people will inevitably compare them with the Thunder 13 years ago. Looking back, in 2012, the Thunder returned to the finals after many years under the leadership of Durant and others, but unfortunately they lost to the Heat in the end. After 2012, the Thunder, led by Durant, never returned to its peak. After losing to the Warriors in the 2016 Western Conference Final, Durant even made the choice of "joining if you can't beat it."

Although Durant's decision has caused him a lot of infamous, joining the Warriors has brought him two championship rings and two FMVP trophys. Without these achievements, he would not have had his current historical status. Durant, who achieved success in 2019, left the Warriors. This time he brought his talent to the Nets, and later formed a core lineup of the Big Three with Irving and Harden. Unfortunately, the team did not succeed and soon ushered in disbandment. Durant also joined the Suns in 2023.

Durant must have joined the Suns, because he was still striving to compete for the championship. After all, his years of defeat at the Nets have also made him mocked and left the Warriors and he will never succeed again. After coming to the Suns this time, Durant was still involved in the team building. After losing to the Nuggets in the 2023 playoffs, the Suns management began to seek reinforcement. At that time, the team fell in love with Bill, and Durant gave his own suggestions. In the end, the Suns also decided to officially finalize the deal. In the end, they sent Paul and other chips to exchange for Bill.

But now looking at this deal, the Suns and Durant have both misunderstood. Bill is completely incompatible with this team. He is completely unable to match his own value with the highest salary in the team. Bill, who has an annual salary of 50.2 million this season, averaged only 17 points, 3.3 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.1 steals per game in the regular season. At the same time, he and Booker and Durant not only overlapped the offensive end, but also started the team. The team did not see the defense. So during the regular season, Bill played many substitutes again after 9 years.

However, this change did not work much, and the Suns still missed the playoffs until the end, so it also means they were wasting another season. In fact, as early as last year's offseason, the Suns thought about whether they could trade Bill to stop the loss in time, but because he held the veto power of trading, the team was unable to change for a long time. This season, he once forced the Suns to be able to reorganize the lineup by putting Durant on the trading shelves.

At that time, the next home the Suns were looking for for Durant was the Warriors. Both sides were already close to negotiations, but after Durant learned of this plan, he took the initiative to stand up and said that he refused to join the Warriors, so the deal was declared bankrupt. Because he was placed on the trading shelves without being told, there was obviously a crack in the relationship between Durant and the Suns. Everyone can see that this summer, it was basically a foregone conclusion that Durant left the team. However, even so, Durant still did not play badly. He still played hard for the rest of the season to try to help the team win. Unfortunately, his ankle sprain finally ended the season early.

In the end, Durant averaged 26.6 points, 6 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 1.2 blocks per game. In the 62 games he played, he also scored 30+ in 20 games. Among the two best-performing games, he even scored 43 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assists and 2 steals, 42 points, 6 rebounds, 8 assists and 1 block, respectively. In this way, the Suns were able to defeat the powerful enemy Cavaliers in one game.

Looking back on Durant's performance over the past year, even if he doesn't look at his 36-year-old age, his instant combat power is worthy of his own value, and his scoring ability at critical moments is still very trustworthy. The reason why Durant was traded by the Suns was obviously not because he was not strong enough, but when Bill couldn't send him away and Booker was younger, using him in exchange for some players who were more suitable for the current Suns lineup might be the Suns' only choice.

According to Shams' report, after the Suns ended this season, their goals and Durant were still the same, and the two sides were constantly communicating to achieve a win-win situation. There are currently 4-6 teams, and they are all very interested in Durant, so the Suns will speed up the negotiations next. They are expected to officially finalize Durant's deal before the 2025 draft begins. In order to end this farce as soon as possible, the Suns are also willing to lower the asking price for Durant.

The biggest problem with this deal is Durant's contract. First of all, his annual salary of more than 50 million yuan will cause any team that wants to get him to pay for many core rotations in the original lineup, unless the Suns are willing to take over the junk contract, but this also means that the team that trades Durant has to give away a large number of draft picks to be reasonable.. Also, Durant's contract is only one season left, so these teams who are interested in him have to consider whether Durant is willing to sincerely serve their team. Otherwise, after they invest a lot of money in exchange for Durant, the latter's contract expires in 2026 will leave directly, and they will lose money.

So overall, those teams with prospects for championships are likely to be willing to take such a big risk to get Durant unless they get the latter's contract renewal promise. Also, Durant's salary determines that once he is exchanged for him, the team's lineup is likely to be imbalanced, unless the team, like the Thunder, has multiple core players who have won rookie contracts. In this way, it will be difficult for Durant to win the championship in the future, and this has not counted the possibility that he will continue to decline.