It’s been nearly two weeks since the Kevin Durant trade first broke, but the future Hall of Famer has still not been officially announced as a member of the Houston Rockets. That is because there is no rush to finalize the details amid the free agency moratorium period, as there could be salary cap and apron advantages to expanding the deal.
According to Fred Katz of The Athletic, the KD trade has a chance to make NBA history as the Rockets and Suns are working to expand the deal to include a record seven teams, with the Hawks, Lakers, Timberwolves, Nets and Warriors all part of discussions right now. The expansion of the trade is not expected to include any major player movement that hasn’t already been reported, but could tie all those teams together in the name of creating trade exceptions and keeping aprons from being triggered.
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The deal would include the Clint Capela sign-and-trade with the Hawks, second-round draft pick swaps the Wolves, Warriors and Nets all made with the Suns, and another second-round draft pick trade between the Lakers and Wolves. It is largely salary cap minutiae, but because all these deals can’t be made official until July 6, there’s some incentive for the teams to all work together to figure out how to loop them all together before that date.
We’ve seen this happen before, as the sign-and-trade sending Klay Thompson from the Warriors to the Mavericks became the first six-team trade in league history, with the Timberwolves, Nuggets, 76ers and Hornets all being looped in to one massive deal. By the time July 6 rolls around, we will likely see plenty of individual trades combined — the Nuggets will likely try to make the Cam Johnson and Jonas Valančiunas trades into a three-teamer for apron reasons. That includes the Rockets and Suns looping in nearly a quarter of the league’s teams into one trade to get KD to Houston.
