It’s funny how things work out. There was a legitimate chance late Tuesday that a Kevin Durant-Golden State Warriors reunion was on the cards, and that in a round-about way the 2x Finals MVP would be traded for himself.
The long-running 2019 trade that saw Durant depart the Warriors has now taken another (and perhaps final) twist. The initial trade saw Golden State acquire D’Angelo Russell — a consolation prize of sorts but an important one that preserved a big salary slot.
The Warriors’ D’Angelo Russell trade takes another turn
After just 33 games with the Warriors in which he averaged 23.6 points and 6.2 assists, Russell was flipped in a franchise-altering move to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Andrew Wiggins and a 2021 first-round pick.
While there were plenty of doubts at the time, it proved a masterstroke from Bob Myers as Wiggins developed from underwhelming former number one overall pick into a valuable two-way forward who was an All-Star and second-best player on a championship team in 2022.
The first-round pick ultimately resulted as the seventh overall pick in which Golden State selected Jonathan Kuminga. According to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst on the Hoop Collective podcast, there was a legitimate chance Wiggins and Kuminga could have been moved to bring back Durant, which would have been a wild finalization to the cycle from that initial 2019 deal.
