Rumors of a lopsided trade sending Kevin Durant to Miami for Tyler Herro are surfacing. Discover why swapping a legendary superstar for unproven depth could jeopardize Houston's future.
With the Houston Rockets seeing their season end in disappointment, all eyes are on what they decide to do in the offseason. A decision with Kevin Durant is seemingly at the top of that to-do list for the organization.
While the 37 year old veteran is still technically signed for two more seasons, a player option for 2026-2027 essentially makes next year his final season under contract.
Assuming Durant wants to keep playing, it’s likely he’d get another extension before ever entering free agency. Crazier things have happened though, and we have seen him hit unrestricted free agency before, as covered on Roundtable.
After all, he has followed in the footsteps of LeBron James before, and The King is set for unrestricted free agency this summer. Perhaps that will play into Durant’s future.
As both of their time in the NBA is inevitably coming to an end, KD’s decision is a little less immediate, but still just as intriguing to me. He also has less of a decision in the matter at this time.
If he did want to depart from Houston after just one season, it’d have to be a trade this offseason. Andy Bailey of Bleacher Report proposed one of those trades here. I’ll be honest, I’m not a huge fan of this one at all and I don’t know if any Houston fans would be.
The deal suggests that Miami gets Kevin Durant in exchange for Tyler Herro and Nikola Jović. I was genuinely surprised to see that Pat Riley wasn’t the author of this article after seeing that proposal.
I’m sorry, but Kevin Durant has 16 times as many All-Star appearances as Tyler Herro. I don’t think anyone would be surprised if the old-timer played in his 17th All-Star Game before Herro made it a second time.
No disrespect to Mr. Herro, as he’s still a very talented player. I’m sure he’ll have a long and successful career —— but Durant has already done it.
Using Sports-Reference, you can see Herro’s best season still doesn’t match up with Durant’s most recent season. You can’t just throw over a decade of proven talent away with the hope that someone else will continue to progress.
Herro also has never been viewed as a plus or even average defender, which is not ideal for Houston. Ime Udoka is already struggling with Reed Sheppard’s rotation, and Alperen Şengün will obviously need his minutes too.
Amen Thompson could eliminate some of that pressure, but he has a bit of a history with Tyler Herro after they got into it a couple times, as seen here. All in all, it just doesn’t seem ideal for Houston.
For Miami though, it’s obviously great. They turn a late lottery pick into a future Hall of Famer. Potentially snagging the big fish they’ve been after and enticing more people to join the 83-point scorer.
They also get rid of a 4yr/62M dollar contract that they might regret. Nikola Jović just played a career high number of games (47) but logged his least minutes per game since his rookie season. He also got less starts than any other year, with only one, according to Basketball-Reference.
All around, this just seems like a deal that Pat Riley and Heat fans would love, but I honestly don’t see any logic in it otherwise. Durant is under contract and can’t force his hand too much, so it’d be insane for the Rockets to make a lackluster trade like this.