PHOENIX — As has become the norm, the Phoenix Suns were mum on all of the fallout from Thursday’s trade deadline, reporting that included the team nearly trading Kevin Durant.
General manager and president of basketball operations James Jones spoke before Friday’s matchup with the Utah Jazz.
“It’s been my longstanding policy to not talk about rumors, speculation,” he said. “I’ve always said what we do internally we keep internally. It always gets noisy when you’re not winning. We’re not winning. So we’ll just stay above the noise.”
Arizona Sports’ John Gambadoro, as well as ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne and Brian Windhorst, have all reported that a three-team deal involving Durant going to the Golden State Warriors and Jimmy Butler coming to Phoenix from the Miami Heat was nearly finalized before Durant expressed apprehension at a reunion in the Bay.
Windhorst later reported that Durant was not happy to be kept out of the loop with his name in trade talks, as he is content in Phoenix. Windhorst added that a breakup over the summer is now likely.
“Kevin’s been around the noise his entire career,” Jones said of it. “He’s a pro. He’s the best at it.”
In terms of Durant’s reported frustration and if Jones felt like a conversation was necessary to ease the tension, Jones said the following:
“It’s ongoing dialogue with the team,” he stated. “When you get to the trade deadline, every team has these moments. These moments of frustration, these moments of uncertainty.”
The Suns have bigger problems at hand than all this noise at hand.
They came into Friday 25-25, firmly looking the part of a .500 basketball team that is drastically underwhelming.
Shelburne reported on Thursday that the locker room is currently “toxic,” a notion players like Grayson Allen and Royce O’Neale denied at shootaround, and even looked to find amusing. Head coach Mike Budenholzer also called that report “untrue.”
To that point, while Phoenix’s tremendous struggles with cohesion and continuity on the court speak to a group not clicking, there have hardly been any signs of discontent growing with each other. Who knows what is going on behind the scenes, but what happens on the court will show it one or the way other. This doesn’t look like last year’s ugly segments to close out the regular season.
Jones was asked about Durant’s reported frustration with almost getting dealt once more.
“I would be frustrated too if we weren’t winning and a lot of the blame, a lot of the noise was around me,” he said. “I know Kevin understands that. He’s human. He’s just like everyone else. But he’s a hooper, and he’s a pro. And he’s been above it hsi entire career. So he knows where we stand. He’s pivotal for us. He’s one of our leaders, he’s our All-Star and we need him to continue to be who he is and how he always is and he’ll help us turn it around.”
Durant was ruled out Friday due to a left ankle sprain and was unavailable in the media’s open locker room period pregame.
