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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 July for Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, one first-round pick and five second-rounders.
They finished 45-37 and advanced out of the play-in tournament before getting swept by Oklahoma City in the first round of the playoffs.
“I’m not saying it’s Kevin Durant or not Kevin Durant,” Ishbia said. “I’m not going to go name every one of my players, but we’ve defined what matters to us. We have a thing called the Suns’ DNA, the type of player that we believe in, that we want, and it’s a team that the fans will be proud of.
“Everyone thought we were going to be the worst team in the league last year,” Ishbia said. “We made the playoffs, won 45 games. We’re going to build on that. And so, what I’ve learned, my biggest lesson to kind of come back, one, it’s not positive or negative about Kevin Durant. What it is is we have to define what we’re about in Phoenix and then stick with it and believe in our vision and our path.
“And I didn’t do that at the beginning. I kind of just threw money at the problem. Now I got personally involved with every decision, from the 14th man on the roster to the first man on the roster, every aspect of it, fan experience, players, coaches. I’m putting my heart and soul into it.”
Durant and the Rockets (52-30) were the No. 5 seed in the Western Conference, but they were also bounced in the first round in six games by the Lakers.
“I always had fun out there,” Durant said in August on his Boardroom platform. “I don’t want to undercut my time in Phoenix because I feel like we have some great moments on the court. But I feel as though we were an older group who kind of stuck in our ways as veterans, and veterans kind of like to do their own thing a lot. When you’re a younger group, it’s more of a tight-knit group.
“They’re all learning together, it’s kind of like a college feel, and I think that’s the difference.”