Kevin Durant endured a turbulent final season with the Phoenix Suns. Even so, the superstar forward had no interest in rejoining his former team, the Golden State Warriors, at February’s trade deadline.
Durant’s playoff success has waned since his unceremonious 2019 exit from Golden State after three seasons. The 2014 MVP won NBA championships in his first two campaigns in the Bay Area, going back-to-back in 2017 and 2018 before suffering a torn right Achilles tendon in the 2019 NBA Finals. Since then, he has yet to make it beyond the second round as a leading man.
Despite entering the 2024-25 season with title hopes, Phoenix’s star-studded roster managed just 36 wins, falling short of a play-in appearance. Amid the franchise’s underwhelming performance, it reportedly shopped Durant, with an opportunity for him to reunite with the Stephen Curry-led Warriors arising.
However, according to the 15-time All-Star, he opted to hold out for a more desirable trade destination.
Kevin Durant Details Decision To Nix Trade Back to Warriors
Speaking at this year’s Game Plan Sports Business Summit, Durant provided insight into the Suns’ trade deadline activity, acknowledging that he was “a little upset” when he discovered they wanted to move him.
After he “got over that quickly,” the 36-year-old was “trying to figure out what the next steps were” when Golden State emerged as a viable landing spot. At that point, Durant and his agent, Rich Kleiman, worked behind the scenes to prevent a deal from going through.
“I heard Golden State was in the mix around the trade deadline, but that’s when Rich came into play, and those relationships that we built around the league and also playing in Golden State helped,” Durant said. “We were able to tell them to kind of hold off on that.”
While Durant achieved peak success with the Warriors’ late 2010s superteam, he caught constant flak from fans who claimed he took the easy route to his first championships. His strained relationship with co-star Draymond Green and concerns about coach Steve Kerr’s offensive system also reportedly influenced his 2019 relocation to the Brooklyn Nets.
With Curry, Green, and Kerr still with the Warriors, a return may have rekindled past tensions and further hindered Durant’s public image. As such, he waited for the offseason to zero in on his next move, joining the upstart Houston Rockets via an early July blockbuster trade.
“Since me being on the market in February, when there’s also a trade deadline, people were just kind of seeing how their seasons played out and what they needed for their teams,” Durant recounted. “We knew we would revisit that right around the summertime, and Houston kind of jumped on it, and it happened pretty fast from there.”
Kevin Durant confirms that he personally blocked a trade in the 2024-25 season that would’ve sent him back to the Golden State Warriors with Stephen Curry 😳
“I heard Golden State was in the mix around the trade deadline, but that’s when Rich came into play, and those… pic.twitter.com/b71rmCdx9j
— Courtside Buzz (@CourtsideBuzzX) September 21, 2025
Durant is now set to serve as the elder statesman on a budding squad, headlined by star center Alperen Şengün. With the Rockets fresh off a second-place Western Conference finish (52-30), the change could give him a prime opportunity to secure his third title and first apart from Golden State.
