The Suns landed 13-time NBA All-Star Kevin Durant in a blockbuster deal with the Nets this past week. The move has been widely praised by pundits and boosted Phoenix back into conversation about teams capable of competing for an NBA title this year.
But one Arizona-based columnist has the complete opposite opinion of the deal struck to land the generational talent.
Phil Boas of the Arizona Republic penned a scathing review of the Durant trade from the perspective of a longtime Arizona sports fan, in which he suggested that the deal for the 34-year-old forward “may be the worst trade in Arizona sports history.”
“This may be the worst trade in Arizona sports history, and that’s a very high bar,” Boas wrote Friday. “This is the city that traded pitcher Max Scherzer and three other players to the Detroit Tigers for Ian Kennedy and Edwin Jackson. You may have heard of Scherzer. He went on to win three Cy Young Awards, pitch two no-hitters and win a World Series.”
“What qualifications do I – an editorial page columnist – have to judge the Suns trade? I’ll show you my qualifications: Fifty years of suffering. Fifty years of watching Arizona arenas become the Leisure World for aging superstars. We have done this so many times before it has become almost seasonal, the thing we do along with Thanksgiving and Christmas.
“We roast the turkey, we hang the mistletoe and we sign a beyond-his-prime sports legend to ride his last big contract into the sunset.”
Boas went onto detail some of the more specific gripes he had with the trade. He pointed to the fact that Phoenix gave up four first-round picks, as well as talented rotation players in Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson, saying that the Suns “mortgaged their future.” He also called out the team’s lack of depth and defense after acquiring a “injury-prone” Durant.
“Many say you have to go for it when a championship window opens. But if the Suns have learned anything over their last two years of success, the NBA playoffs are an endurance test. You better go with defense and depth,” Boas wrote. “The Suns now have neither. They may remedy that in the free market, but why are we to believe that Durant, Devin Booker and Chris Paul (not even the same Chris Paul he was two years ago) will fare better than Durant and Kyrie Irving and James Harden?”
Boas almost ended his column on a somewhat-optimistic note, writing that he hoped he was wrong about the deal. However, he quickly stifled his own hopes of seeing the Suns hang a banner this season.
“But I’m not wrong.” Boas finished. “I’m 50 years of cold, hard Arizona sports reality staring you in the face.”
