TRADE RE-GRADE: Brooklyn Nets get A++++ for Kevin Durant deal
Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports
Bleacher Report’s staff does a deep summer time dive on the biggest trades of the past five years, including the Nets deals involving the “Big Three.” It’s never over till it’s over and the value of the Brooklyn Nets trades of their “Big Three” won’t be fully realized for another seven years. By then, all the draft picks the Nets received in the trades for Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden will have been recorded in the NBA books.
Still, pundits will look out over the NBA’s horizon and project, project, project. Earlier this week, Bleacher Report’s staff took a look at some big NBA over the last five years and included the the deals for all three superstars in a regrade-the-trade off-season survey.
Kevin Durant
Their big focus was the Durant deadline trade to the Phoenix Suns in 2023 ... and subsequent moves the Nets made in redirecting the big piece the Nets received in that trade, Mikal Bridges, to the Knicks and the reconstruction of the draft assets from the 2021 Harden trade to the Houston Rockets.
Dan Favale is so enamored of the ultimate result that he gives the Nets an A++++ (four pluses,) the biggest upgrade among all the trades B/R examined. Here’s his reasoning:
Brooklyn’s superteam setup had entirely unraveled by the time it negotiated the Durant trade. Getting so much for an unhappy 34-year-old who preferred a relocation to one team was always a big deal.
The Nets have since turned it into a larger victory.
Jettisoning Durant paved the way for them to enter a much-needed reset. It took over a season to get there, but they’re here now, and they have even more picks to show for it.
Bridges was just flipped to the New York Knicks for five additional first-round picks and another first-round swap. Brooklyn was also able to leverage Phoenix’s 2027 and 2029 selections into regaining control of its own first-rounders for 2025 and 2026.
All told, the Nets basically turned KD and two swaps into seven extra first-round picks, the return of the rights to a pair of their own firsts, another two swaps and Cam Johnson. (Crowder was also used to scoop up seconds from Milwaukee in 2028 and 2029—another savvy move.)
Teardowns are often overromanticized, but Brooklyn had no other choice. It made the most, and then some, of a situation that could have torpedoed both its present and future.
A few footnotes to Favale’s analysis: The “leveraging” of the Suns’ 2027 and 2029 picks to remove the Rockets’ swap rights to the 2025 first rounder and return the 2026 first rounder is a bit more complicated. The Nets sent the Rockets swap rights to the Suns firsts in 2025 and 2029 as well as the Suns 2027 first, which had been valued in some previous analyses as the best traded pick in the NBA. The two seconds the Nets got in the Jae Crowder trade were used to dump Joe Harris and Patty Mills salaries. (Part of the Harris trade exception from that trade was used to facilitate the Dennis Schroder deal.) Of course, if the Nets can get a good return for Cam Johnson, that would add to the take.
The Suns, who despite building a superteam were swept in the first round of last season’s playoffs, got a revised B.
It was a massive gamble at the time. It seems even riskier now. Phoenix has changed head coaches twice since the move, and despite making some nice acquisitions on the minimum market since, its roster is teeming with question marks and not enough wings.
Still, if the Suns win a title with KD, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal, that grade automatically becomes an A. (The last time the Nets received an A++++ grade for a trade was when they traded for Deron Williams back in 2011. How’d that work out?)
Kyrie Irving
The Kyrie trade re-grade was less positive, not because the Nets did badly but because the Dallas Mavericks did better than expected.
Brooklyn had no choice but to move on from an untenable situation, and it seemingly did well to get any future first-rounders in the bargain at all...
Irving settled in as a perfect secondary offensive weapon in support of Dončić. He was roundly embraced by teammates, stayed in line away from the court and was indispensable in the Mavs’ run to the 2024 Finals.
Grant Hughes of Bleacher Report gave the Nets a B and the Mavericks an A in that regrade.
The Nets still retain Dorian Finney-Smith who they are reportedly shopping, and the Mavericks first and second round picks, both unprotected, in 2029. They dealt Spencer Dinwiddie to the Toronto Raptors for Dennis Schroder (and Thaddeus Young who they waived) and used a 2027 Mavs second rounder in the Joe Harris salary dump.
James Harden
The Harden trade with the 76ers remains a disaster pretty much for both sides. In case you forgot, Andy Bailey of Bleacher Report is here to remind you.
76ers Receive: James Harden and Paul Millsap
Nets Receive: Seth Curry, Andre Drummond, Ben Simmons, a 2023 first-round pick (Brice Sensabaugh was later selected) and a 2027 first-round draft pick.
The 2027 first rounder, it should also be noted, is protected top eight and if it’s not used in that draft, it rolls over into 2028 with the same protections. Based on the Sixers off-season, the pick seems likely to be used in 2027.
Bailey gives 76ers a revised C, mainly because Daryl Morey was able to move an increasingly fragile Harden to the Clippers. The Nets, though, get a D.
As for the Brooklyn side of this deal, it’s easy to ding the Nets right now. The swing for Simmons, barring some dramatic development this season, was a miss. Seth Curry and Andre Drummond are no longer with the team. Brice Sensabaugh never even played a game there (he was traded as a pick for Royce O’Neale).
But there’s still an outside chance this is salvageable for Brooklyn. And I do mean outside. Having that 2027 pick probably makes this feel better, but it’s protected.
Bleacher Report didn’t re-grade the original Nets trade for Harden, but it sure looks like that would be graded as a flat F with the potential to be among the worst trades in franchise history. Jarrett Allen became an All-Star and a $100 million player in Cleveland and Caris LeVert is still a reliable piece for the Cavaliers.
Although the Nets were able to get two of their picks back in the June draft, they didn’t get their 2024 pick. It not only moved up from No. 9 to No. 3 in the lottery, but the prospect taken with that pick, Reed Sheppard, was just voted the likely Rookie of Year by ESPN’s expert panel. It wasn’t close either with 62% picking Sheppard. Moreover, the Rockets still hold one more Nets draft asset: the right to swap first round picks in 2027. (The Rockets had previously picked up promising guard Tari Eason with the Nets pick in the 2022 Draft.)
Does it all even out in the end? We’ll eventually find out.
B/R Staff Re-Grades 10 of the Biggest NBA Trades of the Last 5 Years - Bleacher Report
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