Amit Mann and Aaron Rose look at the state of Kevin Durant trade talks and why the Raptors will hesitate to shift off their current stance. Full podcast including takeaways from Summer League is on the ‘Raptors Over Everything’ podcast feed.
Video Transcript
AMIT MANN: Because everyone kind of knows the deal. The Raptors could probably offer one of the more appealing packages, but Scottie Barnes is not on the market. He even said so himself. He’s like, yeah, I know I’m not on the market.
I’ve been told that by the Raptors that I’m not going to be going anywhere. So we know that already. What is the second-best package? What is the third-best package? Where are you with Kevin Durant potentially being a Toronto Raptor? What do you think?
AARON ROSE: I think the Suns chances of getting Kevin Durant took a hit yesterday with the news of the Pacers we’re going to offer sheet– signed an offer sheet for– or not Myles Turner, excuse me, DeAndre Ayton. And we know Ayton is going back to Phoenix on that offer sheet, but now he can’t be traded without his consent for a year and can’t be traded, regardless of his consent, until January 15.
So they can’t trade him this summer. And that makes the package for Durant a little bit more complicated. You can throw in Bridges, Cam Johnson, Jae Crowder, and make something there, and they have their draft picks to do it. But that package is looking a lot less appealing than it did a few weeks ago when we were thinking maybe they could sign and trade Ayton, throw in Bridges, a couple of picks, and get it done.
Which makes the chances of Toronto being able to pull off an offer a lot more realistic, I think. That being said, I still don’t think it happens. And I feel like I’ve been a wet blanket on trade talks all summer. But I go back to what Masai Ujiri said at his season-ending press conference, which was we have a young core.
We want to be patient. We’re going to let this group grow. And the core is the core. Now, when he said that, he probably wasn’t picturing Kevin Durant becoming available. But still, you would have to– just to make the salaries match, you have to give up a lot of quality players, valuable players just to make the financials work.
So we talked about a Scottie Barnes trade– that probably won’t happen. And you’d have to throw in more to that to make it happen. Now, you’re talking about moving Pascal Siakam and maybe another piece and future picks. We know Masai Ujiri has never traded away…