Is the Houston Rockets’ strategy really to try to trade for Kevin Durant? Their recent track record seems to suggest the exact opposite. In fact, they appear to have a theory that betting against (shorting) Kevin Durant, is a strategy that pays big dividends. It seems like an odd thing to think about a player who is universally recognized as a generational talent and an all-time great. A guy who is, by many, considered to be the best pure isolation scorer the NBA has ever seen. But here we are again, the Rockets are looking to capitalize on their theory that having Kevin Durant on your team isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
The Houston Rockets’ Strategy: Keep Betting Against Kevin Durant
The Nets saga
Ahead of the draft, Houston sent two of their Brooklyn Nets picks back to Brooklyn in exchange for four Phoenix Suns picks/swaps instead. How did Houston acquire those Brooklyn picks in the first place? By trading the second-best player in franchise history. Notably when it came to trading that player, they prioritized a package of picks over something built around an accomplished young player such as Ben Simmons. For the sake of this argument, let’s assume Houston didn’t simply have a crystal ball and see the grim basketball future awaiting the former All-NBA “guard”. Even more notably, picks from a team that had Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, and now also James Harden.
It is true that the Rockets had just experienced Harden’s flightiness firsthand, and he was indeed the first of the trio to seek greener pastures. We’re currently waiting to see if he thinks he can find still greener than those he’s been grazing with the Clippers. But soon the whole era of Nets basketball imploded and those picks started to look pretty good. In fact, the picks currently look better than ever. The Rockets just picked third in the draft with a pick from the Nets. Meanwhile, the theory is that the Nets bottomed out by trading Mikal Bridges on the condition of getting their own picks back first. However, Houston still has a Brooklyn swap option in 2027.
Of course, if that were the only instance of the phenomenon, then it wouldn’t even be worth suggesting that the Houston Rockets’ strategy was informed by an unsavory appraisal of Durant’s macro-level contributions to winning basketball. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t even the first.
Going up against the Warriors
Kevin Durant’s decision to join the Golden State Warriors after the 2015-26 season was widely seen as penciling in the 2016-17 champions on the spot. The competitive integrity of the league was in shambles. Clearly, the Warriors would win, they’d just won a record 73 games the year before and now had swapped Harrison Barnes for the 2014 MVP. It may have spawned beautiful basketball, but it made for a lousy sport. The Cleveland Cavaliers naturally had to soldier on. They were the defending champions after all, and the city’s economy was based around LeBron James. But most teams put plans on the back burner. No sense in going all in when the championship was already locked up for the next few years. One other team thought differently though – the Houston Rockets.
Houston went big in the 2017 offseason and snagged Chris Paul to pair with MVP runner-up James Harden. The duo fought Golden State to seven games in the conference finals. They might have even won but for yet another Chris Paul postseason injury and 27 straight missed threes.
How did they get so close? By making Kevin Durant beat them (which again, to be clear, in the end, he did). The Rockets played a switching style specifically designed to blow up Golden States’ vaunted movement offense. The goal was to force them to play isolation basketball. Isolation basketball – the thing that Kevin Durant is supposed to do better than anyone. The Houston Rockets’ strategy was simply to live with it.
Betting against Durant again
And now the Rockets are shorting Kevin Durant once again. Of course, there was chatter ahead of the draft that they had plans to trade for him. But the Rockets kept their powder dry and turned the number 3 pick into Reed Sheppard. Now their plan for the Suns’ picks seems clear. Wait for another Kevin Durant team to implode and sweep in with the obvious remedy. In this instance – the Suns’ own picks. It won’t be Kevin Durant they’d be trying to sweep back out with either. Rather his latest superstar teammate – Devin Booker.
Does Houston General Manager Rafael Stone seriously think that Kevin Durant is bad at basketball? The answer is clearly no. However, maybe there really is something he’s spied on somewhere in the data that gives him pause. Something that once upon a time he brought to his mentor Daryl Morey, and which he still holds onto today. Maybe it’s got nothing to do with how Durant plays. Maybe it’s all to do with his wandering eye or his past injury record. Whatever the case, we can roughly say the strategy is one for two at present. The Rockets lost in two straight post-seasons to KD’s (really Stephen Curry‘s) Warriors. Not ideal… but the Nets’ picks turned out great! With Durant’s latest team’s picks now in hand, we’ll see if this Houston Rockets strategy can get its success rate up to two for three.
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