After months of speculation, it is done. The Brooklyn Nets have finally traded Kevin Durant, and it came not long after they traded Kyrie Irving. We are clearly in an era of superstars wanting to change teams all the time, and Durant is the best player to have been traded over the past few years. With Durant in Phoenix, the entire landscape of the NBA has changed.
Obviously, Kevin Durant is having another MVP-caliber season over the time he has been healthy. The superstar forward is averaging 29.7 PPG, 6.7 RPG, and 5.3 APG for the Brooklyn Nets over 39 games played. These are superstar numbers from a top-3 player in the world, and Durant’s move has made the Phoenix Suns a scary team to come up against.
Luckily for Durant, the Suns are 5th in the Western Conference with a 30-26 record. That means the Suns are only 4 games behind the second seed and 8.5 games behind the top-seeded Denver Nuggets. With Durant on board, the Suns have a great chance to put together a winning streak and occupy a top-2 seed to place them in a position to win it all. No doubt, Phoenix has become a title contender again, and by most accounts, they will win the NBA championship.
Here are the 5 major reasons why the Phoenix Suns will win the NBA championship with Kevin Durant on the team, even if the team lost three key players Mikal Bridges, Jae Crowder, and Cameron Johnson. As a top team in the West, the Phoenix Suns have their greatest chance in franchise history to win an NBA title since Charles Barkley made the Finals in 1993.
5. A Dominant Superteam
Phoenix has been a great team since the 2021 NBA season. They made the NBA Finals in 2021, competing with the Milwaukee Bucks in a losing effort. Chris Paul has helped elevate Devin Booker’s game tremendously while also providing leadership qualities that have proven to be extremely important. Youngsters such as Deandre Ayton and Mikal Bridges proved to be solid in their roles, and head coach Monty Williams has become one of the elite coaches.
Losing in the NBA Finals hurt, but they gained experience from that because even veteran Chris Paul played in his first NBA Finals. Last year, Phoenix top of the West with a 64-18 record and looked dominant in the regular season. In the playoffs, the Suns collapsed completely as Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks destroyed them by 33 points. This season, they ran it back with the same core led by Paul and Booker, so far holding a 30-26 record. Jae Crowder has been AWOL, however.
With Kevin Durant replacing Mikal Bridges and Cameron Johnson, the Suns basically have a core that made the NBA Finals already, except they added a 4-time scoring champion and one of the best players in the world right now. By simply looking at the Big Four and their stats, it is obvious Phoenix has the best superteam by far. Chris Paul is posting 13.6 PPG and 8.7 APG, Booker is averaging 26.8 PPG and 5.6 APG, Deandre Ayton is posting 18.4 PPG and 10.3 RPG, and Durant is averaging 29.7 PPG on 55.9% FG, 37.6% 3-PT FG, and 93.4% FT.
Together, these players have everything it takes to win it all because no team in the West has 4 All-Star caliber starters. Phoenix will be able to fill in the gaps in the roster with role players, including Cameron Payne, Torrey Craig, T.J. Warren, Damion Lee, and Bismack Biyombo. The Suns might search in the free agent market or the buyout market for more options, but their Big Four has essentially created the NBA’s best superteam.
4. Chris Paul’s Last Dance
Chris Paul is one of the legendary point guards of this generation. When discussing the greatest point guards of all time, Chris Paul is normally mentioned among the 5 or 6 best to have ever done it. That is debatable, but Paul brings an elite skill set on both ends of the floor along with all-time great leadership ability. CP3 is a 12-time All-Star with 5 assist titles, so he has been a dominant playmaker for most of his career.
Of course, this isn’t the prime Chris Paul we are talking about in 2023. Chris Paul, in his prime, was a legitimate MVP candidate and a top-5 player in the world at one point. The point guard is 37 years old and has a ton of mileage on his legs, and is not quite a superstar anymore. After all, this is evidenced by how the point guard was included in trade packages involving Kyrie Irving. But despite his age, Paul is still one of the best floor generals in the NBA and possibly the best leader. He is a direct extension of the head coach on the court and will have no issues welcoming Kevin Durant into the offense.
Paul has proven he can play alongside other dominant offensive players and not bring any negative aspects whatsoever. He helped make the Los Angeles Clippers a title contender during the “Lob City” days with Blake Griffin, came close to winning a championship in 2018 alongside James Harden, and made the NBA Finals alongside Devin Booker in 2021. With Kevin Durant on board, Chris Paul will become a full-time playmaker who will be relegated to the fourth scoring option.
Thanks to Paul’s unselfishness and awareness that his career is close to finishing, the point guard will do his best to hand the keys of the team to Booker, Durant, and Ayton. CP3 is the best playmaker that Durant has ever played with, and that could elevate his own game even more. Paul can be a knockdown shooter (38.8% 3-PT FG) and clutch option when the game is tight, meaning the point guard’s Last Dance depends greatly on how impactful Durant can be.
3. Devin Booker Proves His Worth
It is time for Devin Booker to prove why he is the best shooting guard in the league and a legitimate MVP candidate. Chris Paul has received most of the credit for Phoenix’s rise in the West because the Suns were irrelevant until the point guard arrived. Booker has been a dominant offensive player for the past few years, averaging at least 25 PPG over the past 5 seasons. The shooting guard has developed his offensive game to the point of creating his own offense anytime he wants, along with being a knockdown shooter.
Booker has been receiving criticism for not closing the deal in the NBA Finals two years ago and also for failing to compete with Luka Doncic last year in the Western Conference Semifinals. The shooting guard might be tired of holding the reputation for being a scorer and not being a winner, and at 26 years old, he is entering an age where winning matters above all. Booker is averaging 26.8 PPG, 4.6 RPG, and 5.6 APG on 47.5% FG, 36.5% 3-PT FG, and 84.5% FT so far this season.
Booker’s numbers are solid, as usual, but he needs to be more than that. The 3-time All-Star cannot afford to waste another season of Chris Paul’s presence because, with Kevin Durant beside him, there are no more excuses. Devin will realize it is his time to be a clutch scorer and dominant offensive player in the biggest games. With Durant backing him, Booker will be able to play at his best level.
Expect the former No. 13 overall pick to have his best postseason this year, as he won’t have the pressure of being the primary scoring option and dealing with constant double-teams. Rather, he can play off Durant and do what he does best: score the ball.
2. Kevin Durant’s Revenge
No player has more to prove and more fuel to succeed than Kevin Durant. Since leaving the Oklahoma City Thunder, KD has become one of the major villains in the NBA. Nobody would have ever predicted that the Slim Reaper would join a 73-9 team in the offseason, but KD went against the grain to end up winning two NBA championships and two Finals MVP awards. The superstar forward did it back-to-back against LeBron James and silenced critics for at least a while.
Durant then left Golden State to join the Brooklyn Nets for a chance to win a title as the man without the help of three other All-Stars under an all-time great coaching system in Golden State. Fast forward three years later, Durant has become the NBA’s biggest villain again after he was unable to control Kyrie Irving and the rest of the Brooklyn drama. Yet again, Durant is under the heaviest microscope across the NBA.
KD is one who is always aware of what is being said about him, whether he uses burner accounts to engage in social media or listen intently to the media. Unlike other elite superstars, Durant really cares what others think about him. But unlike most people, Durant does not allow negativity to hold him back, he uses it as fuel to dominate the scoring part of the game. KD is a part of yet another superteam, and he has a chance to win his 3rd NBA championship.
The 4-time scoring champion will be out for revenge because the only way to shut people up is to win NBA championships. Alongside an impactful scorer in Devin Booker and the best playmaker he has ever played with in Chris Paul, Durant knows his team is the favorite to win it all. Expect Kevin to tap into his days with Golden State to destroy the competition in the regular season and the playoffs, which is very bad news for the opposition.
1. Phoenix’s Time Finally Comes
They say the third time is the charm, but maybe it’s truly the fourth, that is. Phoenix first reached the NBA Finals in 1976, where they fell 4-2 to the Boston Celtics. This was despite Alvan Adams averaging 23.0 points and 10.2 rebounds per game in the Finals. The Phoenix Suns reached their second NBA Finals in 1993 thanks to an MVP season by Charles Barkley, and they had a great chance to win it all. Unfortunately, the Suns ran into Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, and they were defeated in 6 games. The Suns were unable to avoid a 3-1 hole, and even though they won Game 5, Jordan ended their run in 6 games. It took 28 years before the Suns found themselves in the NBA Finals again, but they weren’t able to capitalize in 2021.
The Milwaukee Bucks, and Giannis Antetokounmpo especially, were too good on both ends of the floor. Chris Paul began to show his age, Devin Booker couldn’t score quite enough, and Monty Williams showed his inexperience by relying on Deandre Ayton to try to stop Giannis. It didn’t work, and the Suns failed again despite it being “their year” in Chris Paul’s cinderella run. Going 0-3 in the NBA Finals, the Suns might realize that the fourth time is the biggest charm.
Phoenix has a chance to win it all, as this is their best chance in franchise history. The 1976 team lacked a true star, and as dominant as Charles Barkley was in his prime, he did not have three other All-Star-caliber players in their prime. Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, Devin Booker, and Deandre Ayton are extremely talented and have more star power than the 1993 Suns had. This Phoenix team is also far better than the 2021 team because they have a 4-time scoring champion and one of the twenty greatest players of all time.
It is Phoenix’s time to win it all because everything is aligned for them. The best team in the Western Conference is the Denver Nuggets, and Nikola Jokic might be a 3-time MVP, but he does not have another All-Star beside him without disrespect to Jamal Murray or Aaron Gordon. Memphis is not ready to win just yet, the Clippers are dealing with non-stop injury and load management issues, and the Mavericks will only have half a season to sort out Kyrie Irving and his moods. The Suns have the best starting lineup in the NBA, one of the brightest head coaches, and players who are all motivated to shut out the noise and win an NBA championship.
Source: fadeawayworld
