Kevin Durant returned to Phoenix on Tuesday and said he is “pretty much over it” after being traded to the Houston Rockets last June. The Suns hosted Houston in a nationally televised primetime game, giving Durant his first public comments in the Valley since the deal that sent him away.
Durant had missed Houston’s first game in Phoenix in late November because of a personal matter, and his first trip back carried the kind of attention that follows a former star. He said at shootaround that “at the time, it was tough to take,” adding that he was “sour early on” before getting past it. He also said he expected to be booed when he steps onto the court, a routine sign of how sharply the move still lands with the home crowd.
The reaction makes sense because Durant’s two-plus years in Phoenix produced less than the Suns expected when they brought him in. The team won one playoff series with him and went 85-60 in the regular season when he played, a solid record that still fell short of the championship standard attached to the roster. For Durant, that run ended without much lingering attachment. “There’s not much sentimental value between me and this place,” he said, though he added that he loved living in Phoenix and appreciated the time there.
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That bluntness fit a player who had already described the trade as making him feel “booted out of the building and scapegoated.” Time appears to have eased that wound, even if the split never became emotional in the way some departures do. Durant said he was not in Phoenix long enough to feel he left a mark, though he still wanted to. “I wasn’t here long enough to really feel like I left a mark here,” he said. “And that’s unfortunate because I want to leave marks everywhere I go. But it is what it is, you move on and appreciate the time spent.”
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For the Suns, the night was less about revisiting the trade than about measuring how much of the old hurt remains when one of the league’s most recognizable players comes back in opposing colors. For more on the matchup, see Rockets Vs Suns: Kevin Durant returns to Phoenix and moves on.
