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Report: Kevin Durant responds to trade, Bradley Beal Situation In Phoenix To Be Resolved 'Soon' 2 Kevin Durant (Imagn)

Simone Fontecchio Reveals Touching Kevin Durant Incident Following Detroit Pistons Tenure

Originally posted on FirstSportz | By Amulya Shekhar | Last updated Jul 8, 2025 5:38 PM ET

Kevin Durant is a certified legend when it comes to the amount of respect he enjoys from his peers. A unicorn in every sense of the word, KD has an unmatched reputation as an unguardable talent on the court. Yet, the Phoenix Suns struggled to find the right pieces around him in a disastrous 2023-24 season. One of the moves they tried to make to find the requisite support for him was pursuing Simone Fontecchio .

According to the Italian national basketball team player, Kevin Durant had talked to him on the court about the Suns’ pursuit. Speaking to Italian newspaper Il Centro after being traded from Detroit to Miami, the small forward revealed how Durant had revealed his front office’s pursuit of him in an on-court encounter during the 2023-24 NBA season, when the Suns were still considered as a contending team:

I was just got traded to the Pistons, and one of the first few games that I played with Detroit was against Phoenix, where Kevin Durant was playing at that time. During a break in the game, Durant came up to me and told me, ‘We tried everything we could to get you here, but we couldn’t do it.’ It was a great show of respect from a champion of the game and it made me realize how much he thought of me.

Simone Fontecchio says Kevin Durant told him they did everything they could to get him on Durant’s team last season

“During a break in the game, Durant came up to me and told me, ‘we tried everything we could to get you here, but we couldn't do it.’ It was a great show of… pic.twitter.com/QA0qMirCgt
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) July 8, 2025

This marks a huge shift in the career of the 6’7″ small forward after years of being overlooked by NBA teams. Simone Fontecchio had built a reputation, painstakingly so, after a slow start to his career. He declared for the 2015 NBA Draft, but went undrafted in a loaded draft class. This caused him to settle down in Italy, where he built his reputation and became a three-time Italian champion.

Fontecchio came over to American shores in the summer of 2022. He has since become a viable NBA player, blossoming during his second year it Salt Lake City before building an even better stock for himself in Detroit over the past 16 months.

Kevin Durant will be looking to write a successful new chapter in Houston

When Kevin Durant left the Golden State Warriors, he wouldn’t have bargained on being shorn of an NBA title for over six years since moving from the Bay Area. But such is life – nothing is a given, and even the best of situations can quickly turn into nightmares.

However, after subpar tenures with the Brooklyn Nets and the Phoenix Suns, the Slim Reaper has an opportunity to restart with a blank slate. Signing with the Houston Rockets gives him the opportunity to reload with a team that could be contenders, but don’t have a short timeline to garner this success. The team is built to maximize his strengths in many ways and a postseason run is undoubtedly on the cards.

The Rockets have surrounded Kevin Durant with young defensive talent and athletes like Amen Thompson and Tari Eason . Their offense is initiated by point center Alperen Sengun , who made his All-Star debut this past season and has quickly risen to become one of the NBA’s most prolific big men. They also have wing defense in Dorian Finney-Smith as well as the best center rotation in the league with Steven Adams and Clint Capela .