The Josh Innes Show - Durant To The Rockets

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

The Rockets made a splash over the weekend by trading for Kevin Durant. There is no negative. How about the Rockets hosing the Suns? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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for a team that was the number what number two seed in the West this year and This will be their first superstar since Harden. I think a guy whose game will probably be more beloved than Harden Although the people in Houston loved him when he was there they just you know conveniently hate him now that he's no longer in Houston, but I think it'll be more of a be more Fan friendly and his approach because he's a guy that kind of kicks at old school and just scores the basketball 25 a night name of the game is not getting 1011 free throws a game like your Shay Gilder's Alexander look why am I breaking down to you why am

I breaking this down you know who Kevin Durant is he's been in the league a hundred years let's see let's talk about whether or not this is actually something that's going to work for the Rockets or not, we'll do that after these words. as you make plans to cruise through Muscogee or down Toronto's bustling streets. From now until June 30th, lease a 2025 Volvo XC60 from 1.74% and save up to $4,000. Conditions apply. Visit your GTA Volvo retailer or go to volvocars.ca for full details.

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Check out Prize Matcher and see why it's never ordinary at Bet 365. Must be 19 or older Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you or someone you know has concerns about gambling visit connexontario.ca T's and Z's apply. So the thing about the Durant move, there are some moves that are high risk moves and they have to work right? Because you've given up so much to actually make this move happen and this guy is the future of your organization right when you make a big time move for a

younger dude for instance if you make a move and you sign a superstar who's you know second contract mid 20s if he gets hurt or flops it kills your franchise for five years this is not one of those moves this it's wild to say that a move to get a superstar player is a low risk move. But this is about as low risk as you can get to get a guy who probably makes you better, right? Like he gives you a better, more consistent. Let's put it this way. You look at who they gave up, right? So they give up Jalen Green, they give

up Dylan Brooks. Dylan Brooks is gonna end up playing for 10 teams before his career is over. That's just the kind of player Dylan Brooks is. He's gonna go from place to place when teams need a 3-and-D guy who's mostly D, not a ton of three. He's the kind of guy that will be added to a good team. Like I wouldn't doubt that he gets moved. Hell Hell I don't know that he plays this whole year with Phoenix I mean they might make a move they made made a move for him already. So Dylan Brooks is not that kind of guy. Dylan Brooks is going to play for a bunch of teams. Dylan Brooks is going to be three and D for a bunch of teams. So far what has he played for is this going to be his third team now because he was Grizzlies, Rockets, and now Phoenix, assuming he plays for Phoenix. So there's three over under seven and a half teams for Dillon Brooks in his NBA career

before it's all said and done. Still in his 20s. He does something that is valuable to good teams, which is provide attitude and provide defense kind of alone. So there's a benefit to guys like that. He'll probably I take the over he'll play for six plus team 17. So that's not the thing. You give up Jalen Green, you give up Dylan Broche, you give up a number 10 pick. And actually, so you in return that are getting Kevin Durant, right? Actually, let me give you the full details of the Durant

trade just so I'm not off on this. Let's see Kevin. Let's see Durant. Trade. Let's see Durant trade to Sun. So let's see Katie to Houston grades winners losers. It's also wild that that was announced like the morning of game seven of the NBA finals. It completely takes the wind out of the sales of that game which ended up being a dud anyway. Let's see just hours before the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers play for the title the Phoenix Suns and Houston Rockets linked up to

send Kevin Durant to Houston in a deal for Jalen Green Dylan Brooks and the number 10 overall pick and Wednesday's draft. The thing about the number 10 overall pick is who gives a shit right like picks exist for you to trade them. That's why you stockpile. That's why you stockpile. That's why Darrell Morey stockpiled all the picks that he had. They're tradable assets, right? You're never going to get more than likely not going to get a franchise

altering player with the number 10 pick or the number 16 pick or the five second round picks. That's why you stockpile five second round picks in different dress so you can trade them and it makes it look like a team got all these draft picks. Big deal. You might score one out of those five might be something. Or you may not even keep those. I don't know how all the rules work,

but you might end up trading those picks away too. I'm not positive on how trading draft picks works in the NBA. But you might move those draft picks as well. Picks in the NBA, unless they're like top two or three, depending on that year's draft, are more than likely picks that are assets more so because you can trade them and move them, right? So the actual deal is Kevin Durant to Houston, Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, number 10 overall pick

in Wednesday's draft and five second rounders. When you look at these kind of deals, you ask yourself this, are you closer to winning a championship now than you were for the Rockets? Rockets were the number two seed without them, but you're also giving up not maybe your best player from that squad, but your star player from that squad. So are you better with Kevin Durant? You're certainly more consistent with Kevin Durant because if you watch Jalen Green, was it game two in that

series that Jalen Green went fucking bananas? I had like 37 points and hit like seven threes or something like that was a beast in game two of that series in every other game. He was awful and in every other game he found himself riding the pine in crunch time. Like that's all you need to know about this deal. Kevin Durant's going to the Hall of Fame. Kevin Durant's won an MVP. He's won finals. MVP is granted with a stacked team, right? But Kevin

Durant has won MVP finals MVP. I'm fairly certain he's probably got a scoring title or pretty damn close to it in there. Probably a bunch of all the NBA first teams. Okay, this guy is a Hall of Famer and still can play. Now, he might blow out his Achilles, you know, in September and never be the same guy. That's very possible, right? He's dealt with injuries before. We get all that. So, it's not like it's a no risk here. But what you're giving up is a guy who you discovered in the postseason this year was

not even reliable enough to be on the court in crunch time. Oh, buddy, was the only time you saw Jalen Green in crunch time is when one of those commercials for Wingstop aired during crunch time of a finals game or a playoff game rather. That's the only time you ever saw the dude. So to me, this is about as low risk as you're going to get Dylan Brooks is a journey. I say he's a journeyman. He's only been on two teams, but he's got all the makings of journeyman. Dylan Brooks is a 3-and-D guy that's gonna play as we just talked about for seven different teams before his career's over, maybe more. That's who Dylan Brooks is.

You can survive without Dylan Brooks. You can find another grinder on defense that's not Dylan Brooks. So you lose Dylan Brooks. Big fucking deal. And then you give up Jalen Green who by your own actions, you don't feel is that guy. You feel he's fine. You feel he's a regular season stud, can score 22 a night. Like I keep seeing people say that like you gave up a guy scoring 21 points a night. What did he do in the playoffs? That is important. That is a vital thing. That's all that matters. What you do in October, November, December, January, February, none of that matters. It's nice, gets you paid. What do you do in May, June?

And maybe Jalen Green, it's his first playoffs, maybe next year he comes out and he's a stud. I don't think he's a guy you write off, but if you've got a chance to win a title or you think you have a chance to win a title and you've got Kevin Durant who is a proven Hall of Fame player and he still has game left and you think you can get a year or two out of him with a good coach who you've just signed to an extension and a good young core particularly of defensive players, one of your main downfalls is you couldn't shoot. You were not a good shooting team. Well Kevin Durant's going to fill it up for you and give you 26 a night presumably.

So you're going to get 26 a night from this dude. He can give you seven rebounds a game. He's a veteran Hall of Fame dude. Now, I'm not a big Kevin Durant guy. Kevin Durant ran off to Golden State and won two titles. Whenever he's been the dude whenever it's been his squad. dudes bounced around a lot. We talked about journeyman this dudes now on what is this going to be his third or fourth team in the last handful of years. So Brooklyn didn't do

much with him. Phoenix didn't do much with him. So those are things you have to acknowledge, right? But what is the risk and reward of a move like this? What are you risking? The main risk is that Jalen Green goes on to become a superstar. He's only 23 and you look like putzes because you let him go for two years of Kevin Durant, who is obviously on the downside of his career because he's 37 years old. But what if Jalen Green is just who he is? What if Jalen Green that we saw in the playoffs is who Jalen Green is? I don't think he's as bad as get benched for the crunch time in every playoff game and you know take five shots or whatever. But if he do you believe that

Jalen Green will ever come close to being what Durant is right now? Do you think you have a shot to win a title is Durant still good enough to win you titles? I'm skeptical of that mostly because the guy's dealt with injuries. The guys missed some games. Look, I don't think you get better at 37. Like LeBron could hoop at 37, 38, 39. I don't think LeBron got better at 37, 38, 39. I don't know. Durant has dealt with a lot of injuries. LeBron was not an injury riddled guy for the most part. Durant has had a lot of injuries. He's battled some key injuries, significant injuries, Achilles injuries, big deals like that. So again, it may be a total

waste. But did you think you had a shot to win the title with Jalen Green in an era where the league is wide open Oklahoma City with the worst MVP in 100 years, Shay Gilder's Alexander just won the title. So you look around the West, the Mavericks will be okay once they're healthy, but they're not a monster. The Lakers are with Luca and LeBron, they've appeared to be nothing. They're a non-threat at this point because LeBron's too fucking old and I just don't see them as a true threat to win the whole thing at this point.

The Spurs, Wimby's been there two years. All they do is keep getting top three and top four picks. How good are they going to be? Like you have a chance now, this is why you make that move because there's a lot of teams in the West and really across the NBA that are in flux. And you actually have a good solid core of guys that got you to the number two seed. And you feel like you're you could get one or two years out of

Durant and get a title out of I don't think that's going to happen. But if you look around the West, who are the dominant teams in the West? They don't really exist. Memphis Grizzlies ain't dominant. The Pelicans are a joke. The Spurs keep finding ways. They've got no more pop. And they've been one shit with Wimby for two years. The Lakers are the Lakers. The Clippers are fine. Like there's a lot of teams that are fine. There are no dominant Western Conference teams. Now maybe different things shake out once moves are made, draft picks and trades. I mean, maybe in two

weeks, the world looks a lot different. But as it stands right now, there is no negative. It's like a lot of times you'll make a deal for an aging star and you go, Oh my god, you gave up the future, did you? I mean, if what we saw to Jalen Green is the future of Jalen Green, Jalen Green's a dud. He's fine. But I mean, he was a dud in the playoffs. Dylan Brooks, future journeyman 3andD guy. There is no negative. And what you give a bunch of second round picks, big fucking deal. You hit on one or one out

of those five maybe. So what's's who cares? Like there was no negative. There's no downside to this deal. And really, again, you look around the West and like, I guess you have to include Oklahoma City because they just won the title. But a cool Oklahoma City in the West need. They beat the Grizzlies in the playoffs Grizzlies ain't doing shit. The Warriors are old. Warriors ain't getting better. The Warriors will not get better.

They are who they are. They will only get worse. They are old and they are not going to improve. Clippers are who they are. They're fine. And there's a lot of guys, it's interesting too because we're in a transitional period in the NBA, especially in the West, where there's a lot of dudes who have been stars for the last 15 years, who are now about to be transitioned out of the game. Harden can still hoop, but he ain't going to play forever. So Harden and Kawhi, but Harden in particular, but Harden and Kawhi in

LA, they ain't going to be around forever. Durant now in Houston, ain't going to be around forever. LeBron in LA, ain't going to be around forever. SoBron in LA ain't gonna be around forever. So around the Western Conference, you've got a lot of these dudes. I mean, Anthony Davis ain't gonna be around forever. And if he starts dealing with more and more injuries, who knows? So Kyrie ain't gonna be around forever. So these guys are starting that have been stars for the last 15 to 20 years and are on their way out. So you might as well try to cash in on the one that's out there that you can make a move for. I don't like Durant. I don't like Durant's attitude really. I like the

way he fucks with people on social media. But like I've never bought Durant as like the dude. But Durant giving you 26 a night and seven rebounds every night and some solid D is a better chance and gives you a better chance of winning a title than Jalen Green gave you and you didn't have to give up some sort of marquee started but you think of the deal like the Rockets kind of bent them over like there was a big deal that happened last week. It was the deal that sent Desmond Bain to Orlando and Orlando views themselves as one player away and they felt Desmond Bain might have been that guy because

they needed shooting. They had no shooting worst three-point shooting team in the league. Don't shoot a ton of threes. Don't make a ton of threes. Desmond Bain goes to Orlando. Orlando gives up importantly and they give us a good number of first round picks, but they also give up what was going to be Phoenix's first round pick next year. Phoenix is tanking at this point. I mean, I guess you could say they could win some games with Jalen Green, but that should end up being a decent draft pick for the Grizzlies. So the Grizzlies

not only get a bunch of first round picks, they get Orlando's first round pick or Phoenix's first round pick in their move as well. You could argue that the Grizzlies got a better return for Desmond Bain than Phoenix got for a guy that's going to the Hall of Fame. So, and again, just because you're going to the Hall of Fame, that mean you can hoop now, but I think he can still hoop. He's got to stay healthy, but there is no downside. There's no risk. You've signed the coach. You've got a good young core dudes who can play some defense. Why not take a shot?

I'm sure they're not done yet. But what's right? Like you didn't have to give up that you gave up Jalen Green who is a great unknown right now. So there's not a negative there. Good job by the Rockets may not result in a championship, but there's not a negative.