Injury report listing raises speculation about Kevin Durant trade

Durant turned his ankle during overtime in Monday's 121-119 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers. The injury clearly bothered him, but the timing of the report — with Phoenix about to play their final game before Thursday's trade deadline — raised flags that Durant was being held out because of a pending trade.

There were plenty of good reasons for Durant to be sitting out. He's 36 years old and is averaging a punishing 36.2 minutes per game. He's played in 26 consecutive games. Plus, he's approaching a career milestone of 30,000 points, which he might not want to achieve in Oklahoma City, where the fans still boo him relentlessly, eight years after he left as a free agent.

Oh, and he clearly hurt his ankle.

But speculation has continued to mount that the Suns are working on trading their future Hall of Fame forward. Durant has only one year left on his contract after this one. The Suns and Jimmy Butler have mutual interest in one another, but Phoenix has been unable to trade Bradley Beal to make room for him. Lacking draft assets and salary cap space, trading Durant might be their only way to fix their team.

There's also Suns owner Mat Ishbia's affection for fellow Michigan State alumnus Draymond Green, sparking rumors the Warriors would try to bring back KD. It's all speculation, but after four All-Stars changed teams this week, the NBA hot stove as never been warmer.

Still, to paraphrase Sigmund Freud, sometimes a sprained ankle is just a sprained ankle. Even if it's attached to a hot trade commodity.