Suns' Locker Room 'Toxic' Per NBA Insider

The NBA trade deadline is always going to be tough on locker rooms, and with the Phoenix Suns at the forefront of so much trade chatter and speculation this season, it's clearly impacted the team.

ESPN NBA insider Ramona Shelburne described Phoenix's locker room as "toxic" at the moment:

"The word I would use... I'll use toxic. That shootaround 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," said Shelburne.

"Now you have this reset - how do you move forward as a team when there was a clear mandate here: they have to do something. If they're not able to get anything done ... it's really hard to do something and the thing they wanted didn't come to fruition because Kevin Durant said no. It's hard to move forward and that's where they're left.

"They had this sort of fools gold run three weeks ago, they won eight out of ten. Things looked okay, but they realized afterwards they were just beating bad teams. ... The conversations between Phoenix and the Warriors, those started ten days ago. Ten days ago.

"They were essentially [thinking] if we can't move Bradley Beal, we have to think about Kevin Durant. Do they want to move Kevin Durant? Probably not, they love Kevin Durant. They gave up so much to get him. But if he's worth something right now that you can get a great return for, you have to think about it.

"So for the last ten days, these conversations with the Warriors - and other teams by the way - have been happening."