If Kevin Durant were to be dealt in the offseason, ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins believes that the Miami Heat would be the best fit for the star player from the Phoenix Suns.
“Well, K.D. is all about relationships,” Perkins said at the outset of his defense of Miami as Durant’s ideal destination. Caron Butler, an assistant coach, is a big brother to Kevin Durant and is currently sitting on the bench.
I’m examining their relationship, then. That would fit just right. The Miami Heat then advanced to two NBA Finals, as is well known. They couldn’t overcome the hurdle with Jimmy Butler leading them. Someone like Kevin Durant gets put in there. Additionally, the Miami Heat received several significant additions. There are some really appealing objects there.
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The Heat showed interest in signing Durant back in 2016 when he was a free agent. Coach Erik Spoelstra reportedly told Durant that the team could enhance his efficiency, similar to how they did with LeBron James a few years earlier.
Durant and Butler were teammates on the Oklahoma City Thunder during the 2013-14 season, with Durant winning the MVP that year, averaging a league-high 32.0 points, along with 7.4 rebounds, 5.5 assists, and 1.3 steals per game.
Butler hasn’t played in the NBA since the 2015-16 season and, as Perkins noted, now serves as an assistant coach for the Heat.
Durant is contracted with the Suns through the 2025-26 season, but his future with the team is uncertain following their first-round loss to Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Despite having three of the NBA’s top offensive players in Durant, Devin Booker, and Bradley Beal, the Suns were swept by Minnesota. They were eliminated in four games, with three of those losses being by double digits, except for the close Game 4.
While the Suns’ overall performance in the first-round series was disappointing, Durant still had a strong individual showing against one of the league’s best defenses. The 35-year-old averaged 26.8 points, 6.5 rebounds, and 3.3 assists per game, shooting 55.2 percent from the field and 41.7 percent from three-point range.
Switching focus to the Heat—the team Perkins appears to want Durant to join—their first-round series against the Boston Celtics suggests that Miami could greatly benefit from a scorer of Durant’s caliber. Miami scored over 100 points in only one of the five games in the series and was held to under 90 points in Games 3, 4, and 5.
Although a Durant-Heat partnership seems promising on paper, it’s hard to determine Miami’s standing in the Eastern Conference and the league overall without knowing which players the Heat would need to trade to acquire Durant.
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