Bleacher Report ranked the Suns' Kevin Durant trade among the NBA's five worst of the last five years. For the Nets, though, it's a reminder of how Sean Marks turned Phoenix's massive haul into even more assets and helped set up Brooklyn's future.
Bleacher Report recently ranked the five worst NBA trades of the last five years, and one of the deals on the list should look pretty familiar to Brooklyn Nets fans.
The Phoenix Suns' 2023 blockbuster trade for Kevin Durant came in at No. 3 on the list, while their deal for Bradley Beal later that offseason ranked No. 2.
That is a pretty brutal one-two punch for Phoenix.
But from the Nets' perspective, the Durant trade is much easier to appreciate.
The Suns gave up Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson, Jae Crowder, four first-round picks and a first-round pick swap to acquire Durant and T.J. Warren from Brooklyn. Two years later, Durant was gone, Phoenix had very little to show for the deal, and the Nets had turned several pieces from that trade into a significant part of their future.
In other words, Sean Marks did pretty well for himself.
When Durant was traded to Phoenix in February 2023, the Nets were obviously losing one of the best players in NBA history. There was no getting around that.
But Brooklyn made sure it received an enormous return for him, even though Durant had previously requested a trade and had reportedly preferred Phoenix as his destination.
That is a big reason why the deal looks so good for the Nets in hindsight.
The Suns surrendered four first-round picks, a first-round swap, Bridges and Johnson for what ultimately amounted to roughly two full seasons of Durant. Phoenix never came particularly close to winning a championship during Durant's time with the franchise, and the organization eventually traded him to the Houston Rockets in 2025.
The return from that deal was nowhere near what Phoenix originally gave up to Brooklyn.
Meanwhile, the Nets didn't simply sit on the assets they received.
Bridges became one of the most valuable trade chips in Brooklyn's possession before the Nets eventually sent him to the New York Knicks in a deal that brought back a massive collection of draft capital. Brooklyn also turned Johnson into Michael Porter Jr. in a 2025 trade with the Denver Nuggets, giving the Nets another established player to add to their roster.
And then there is the 2023 first-round pick that Brooklyn received from Phoenix.
That pick eventually became Noah Clowney, who remains an important part of the Nets' young core.
So while Phoenix was trying to build a championship roster around Durant, Brooklyn was able to take the pieces from that trade and keep turning them into something else.
That doesn't mean the Nets somehow "won" the trade in the traditional sense. Trading Kevin Durant is never going to feel like a victory, especially when you're the team sending away a generational superstar.
But when you look at what both teams have gotten out of the deal, it is hard not to like where the Nets ended up.
Bleacher Report's ranking puts that into perspective. The Suns' Durant trade was bad enough to make the five worst deals of the past five years, and their Beal trade was somehow even worse.
For the Nets, though, it is another example of why Marks deserves credit for getting significant value whenever Brooklyn has been forced to move on from its stars.
The Nets entered the 2023 trade deadline with a complicated situation. Durant wanted out, the franchise had just watched Kyrie Irving leave, and Brooklyn had to decide what direction it wanted to take.
Marks could have settled for a mediocre package.
Instead, he got Bridges, Johnson, multiple first-round picks and a pick swap from a Suns team that was clearly desperate to win immediately.
And that is really what makes this trade so interesting from the Nets' perspective.
Phoenix was betting that adding Durant would put the team over the top.
Brooklyn was betting that the collection of assets it received could help build something for the future.
Neither side got exactly what it wanted.
The Suns didn't win a championship with Durant, and the Nets obviously didn't replace Durant with another superstar overnight.
But Brooklyn has had multiple opportunities to turn the original pieces of the trade into something else.
Bridges eventually became a massive haul of draft capital from the Knicks. Johnson became Porter Jr., and the Phoenix first-round pick became Clowney.
That's a pretty good return from a player who was never going to be part of the Nets' long-term plans once he requested a trade.
It also makes the Suns' place on Bleacher Report's list particularly funny for Nets fans.
Phoenix appears twice in the top three, with the Durant trade at No. 3 and the Beal trade at No. 2.
The Durant deal alone would have been painful enough. The Suns then followed it up by sending away even more assets for Beal, only for that relationship to eventually end with Beal being waived and stretched.
Meanwhile, Brooklyn has spent the years since the Durant trade collecting picks, developing young players and continuing to reshape the roster.
That doesn't erase the fact that the Nets once had Durant, Irving and James Harden and failed to win a championship.
But it does show that the organization got a pretty impressive return when that era finally fell apart.
The Suns took their shot.
The Nets got the assets.
And more than three years later, Brooklyn is still finding ways to benefit from the trade.
That's a pretty good endorsement of Marks' work.
The Nets didn't get the better player in the trade. They didn't even keep the players they received for very long.
What they did get was flexibility.
And in the NBA, especially for a team trying to rebuild, that can be just as valuable.
Bleacher Report may have included the Durant trade as one of the worst deals of the last five years, but there is a pretty important detail behind that ranking for Nets fans.
The Suns were the ones who made the bad trade.
Brooklyn was the team on the other side of it.
And Sean Marks made sure the Nets would continue to benefit from it long after Durant left Phoenix.
