Kevin Durant was once the thorn in the side of the Houston Rockets. In 2025-26, he will be a key figure in their efforts to end a wait for a third NBA title that has spanned two decades.
The Rockets on Sunday agreed a blockbuster trade to acquire the 2014 MVP and two-time Finals MVP from the Phoenix Suns, per Shams Chanaria of ESPN.
Durant will head to Houston in exchange for Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, the No. 10 pick in this year’s draft and five second-round picks.
He joins a team that posted the second-best record in the Western Conference in 2024-25, the Rockets going 52-30 in the regular season, only to lose to the Golden State Warriors in seven games in the first round of the playoffs.
That was a familiar turn of events for the Rockets, who had their season ended by the Warriors in the playoffs four times in a five-season span from 2014-15 to 2018-19.
Two of those eliminations (2017-18 and 2018-19) came with Durant on the other end of the floor, though he suffered a calf strain in Game 5 of the Western Conference semifinals.
With Durant now on their roster, the Rockets will look for him to propel a talented and deep young core to a championship.
The other side of the coin is that the Rockets are losing Green from that core.
Green led the Rockets in points per game in 2024-25, the 22-year-old averaging 21 points per game in the regular season. Save for a 38-point performance in Game 2, Green struggled for the same effectiveness in the series loss to the Warriors.
Phoenix will have high hopes for the backcourt pairing of Green and Devin Booker, while the haul of draft picks gives the Suns substantial ammunition to reshape a roster that went 36-46 this season and finished 11th in the Western Conference
