Kevin Durant viciously claps back after Suns owner expresses regret over trading for star
Suns owner Mat Ishbia detailed this week why he believes acquiring Kevin Durant was a mistake, and the 16-time All-Star responded with a social media post that featured a sarcastic hashtag along with seven crying laughing emojis.“#blameKD even though KD stayed on top of his game at 36 and got u back this “culture” you love so much,” Durant posted on X while resharing a story containing Ishbia’s quotes.“Aye, Matthew acts like I got arrested for a DUI or sumn.
Back to threads.”The Suns acquired Durant from the Nets in a trade deadline blockbuster in 2023, sending Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson, Jae Crowder, four unprotected first-round picks and a first-round pick swap in 2028.KD played two-plus seasons in Phoenix, averaging 26.8 points per game in 145 regular-season appearances.But the Suns won just one playoff series during Durant’s tenure and missed the playoffs altogether in 2025, leading to his trade to Houston that summer.“The team was, I think, the eight or nine seed when I bought the team, and we had some good young players,” Ishbia said earlier this week in a CNBC interview.
“Can we get over the top? And I basically was told like, ‘Hey, as an owner, stay out of it and give them some money.’ And so I said, ‘Hey, listen, we’ll go into the luxury tax.Go do whatever it takes to try to win a championship.’“And so we did that.
But it was more going and getting Kevin Durant… that was not aligned with my vision.We had a couple of years, and it did not succeed, as we’re well aware of at this point.
After that year, I decided to trade Kevin Durant, bring in my GM, bring in a coach, and get extremely involved personally with the type of guy and type of person we want at our organization, not just on the court, but off the court.”Ishbia, who bought a majority stake in the Suns from Robert Sarver for $2.28 billion in February 2023, upset Durant by trying to trade him at the deadline in 2025.They eventually dealt him to Houston that...