Kevin Durant’s Trade Rumors Triggered ‘Toxic’ Phoenix Suns Locker Room Says Insider

The many news and speculations that surrounded Kevin Durant in the past several weeks affected the Phenix Suns so much that the locker room atmosphere of the team has become “toxic,” as claimed by a league insider.

The Phoenix Suns and Kevin Durant were two names that have been talked about in trade rumors and speculations in the past months. People and teams have been linked to a potential KD trade, and the Suns have been a huge part of the Ji9mmy Butler and Miami Heat drama as well. However, as the trade deadline closed, the Suns ended up not making the blockbuster, core-shaking move that everyone was expecting them to.

As reported by ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne, this long-running thread of talks and rumors has affected the Suns locker room and the overall team environment.

“The word I would use is toxic,” ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne said during Thursday’s NBA Today. “That shoot-around yesterday, I heard, was very awkward, very weird in Oklahoma City, because everybody was on pins and needles, wondering what they were going to do. Now you have this reset where, how do you move forward as a team? When there was a clear mandate here that they have to do something. And the thing they were trying to do did not come to fruition because Durant said no.”

“They [Suns] essentially were, ‘If we can’t move Bradley Beal, we have to think about Kevin Durant.’ Now, do they wanna move Kevin Durant? Probably not. I mean, they love Kevin Durant, they gave up so much to get him.”