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PHOENIX — It took a lot longer than usual, but Kevin Durant made his return to Phoenix with four games left in the regular season and spoke for the first time in the Valley since he was traded to the Houston Rockets last June.
The Phoenix Suns host the Rockets on Tuesday in a nationally televised primetime showdown with plenty of storylines, thanks some to Durant missing Houston’s first game in Phoenix back in late November for a personal matter.
Durant has already spoken plenty on the trade, saying he felt “booted out of the building and scapegoated,” that it hurt him “because I put all my effort and love and care towards the Suns and the Phoenix area and Arizona in general.”
Those remarks were three months ago, and it appears time has helped heal the wound.
“I’m pretty much over it,” he said at shootaround on Tuesday. “At the time, it was tough to take. A place I wanted to be and keep building but it’s the business of the league. … Yeah, I was sour early on but I think I’ve gotten over it.”
Any special feelings coming back to the arena?
“There’s not much sentimental value between me and this place,” Durant said. “It’s a great place to live, I definitely loved living here. But I was only here for a short amount of time.”
As is the case with just about everything Durant says to the media, whether you agree or disagree, it’s easy to understand what he means.
This was a rather forgetful stay. When he’s inducted into the Hall of Fame, there will be few highlights of Durant in a Suns jersey. And depending on what he accomplishes in Houston, it could wind up being the least relevant time he spent with one of five organizations.
Phoenix won one playoff series, and it was the year he arrived midseason. Its regular season record when Durant played was 85-60, a mirage of a number when it’s all said and done based on what it resulted in and the lacking quality of play it often produced. Ditto for Durant’s impressive individual production.
While he took a few seconds to ponder on the question, it was not surprising to hear him say he didn’t take many lessons from the two-plus years, given everything he had seen and done prior to arriving.
“There’s nothing really big or significant,” Durant said. “I wasn’t here long enough to really feel like I left a mark here. And that’s unfortunate because I want to leave marks everywhere I go. But it is what it is, you move on and appreciate the time spent.”
The crowd reaction on Tuesday will be interesting.
Durant had his fervent supporters, who were just as vocal as his critics. Again, he’s got a point with feeling scapegoated. He and Bradley Beal are 1A and 1B for most fans when pointing the finger at why the last few years went so poorly. Now, he does deserve blame. But his feeling as the primary target still there.
After shootaround, Durant acknowledged he always felt the love from Suns fans when playing for the franchise, and in the past was always complimentary of Phoenix as a basketball city.
But expect him to get booed a whole lot.
For a Suns team looking lethargic as hell lately, the event will at least inject some intensity into their play. It will be Jalen Green’s first time facing Houston since he was traded, while Dillon Brooks was definitely doing even more than he normally does in the prior matchups.
Durant, as you’d expect, will embrace it. He hit the game-winner in his second time facing the Suns in Houston, motioning toward Phoenix to exit the premises.
Green said at Suns shootaround he will approach it like any other game. We’ll see if he, like Durant and Brooks, gets into the extra-circulars of it all.
The Rockets come into Tuesday 49-29, jostling for a seed in the Western Conference between third and sixth. They’ve got a shot of at least matching last year’s win total of 52, but for a squad on paper that had the ceiling to be the second-best team in the West, they have never come close to looking the part for a few months now.
This was a moment in the season many expected for them to be in the conversation for the biggest threat to take down Oklahoma City. Instead, chances of a conference finals appearance seem slim.
That’s because it has been a, well, weird season for Houston. Certain issues have percolated throughout the year that feel familiar.
But before getting to those, the Rockets were dealt a significant injury blow before the season began when starting point guard Fred VanVleet tore his ACL. That jumbled up the initiation and organization of the offense, and then halfway through the year, center Steven Adams had season-ending ankle surgery. Adams was leading the efforts on a historic offensive rebounding rate that was lifting a mediocre offense into a great one. Without him, the rebounding is still pretty great but the offense dropped from fourth pre-Adams injury to 14th.
That has certainly been a contributing factor in the Rockets not remaining consistent to the culture and identity head coach Ime Udoka built up through his, for lack of a better phrase, hard-ass attitude.
You also wonder what else is contributing to that.
Udoka has had a number of press conferences this year calling out his team’s engagement, and that has not done the trick. Young building blocks Amen Thompson and Alperen Sengun are having career years statistically but look more out of sorts than they did last year within the flow of the team. There are listless performances aplenty from a team previously known for its toughness and moxie.
There was the thought of Durant being able to approach this like Golden State, where an established foundation of how they play and are coached would allow him to ingratiate himself much easier in ways that Brooklyn and Phoenix did not allow for. But it has looked far more like those two situations that looked more uncomfortable.
The primary benefit of the Durant addition was to take the pressure off Sengun and Thompson offensively and carry the weight of a brutal offense in clutch time. Last season, Houston was 26-18 in clutch games with a -0.9 net rating. This year, it is worse, 21-22 with a -9.2 net rating.
A watch reveals some of the problems Phoenix dealt with. Houston’s offensive structure is often loose, unable to stick to a concrete plan and at times immensely struggling to do the most basic things. Getting Durant the ball can occasionally be a chore, and all of this really comes to a head when the game is on the line.
The on-off numbers still speak to Durant’s impact. A 5.5 net rating when Durant is on the floor drops to 2.7 when he takes a seat, the second-lowest mark amongst Rockets regulars.
Durant has still been Durant from a production standpoint, something easy to breeze by before remembering he’s 37 years old. Durant’s 25.9 points per game are his lowest in almost a decade, but only by a few hairs. The bonkers efficiency of 51.9% from the field, 41% at 3-point range and 87.7% for free throws remains as consistent as ever.
It would be remiss to not at least mention the viral speculation online about a supposed social media burner account from Durant, with the account having several messages leaked in private group chats that spoke lowly of current and former teammates/organizations. The story that broke prior to the All-Star Game was never confirmed, but Durant took an extended break from posting and the private account was following a few Suns social media personalities. Regardless of whether it was really him or not, you can imagine how the speculation of its legitimacy would create problems in the locker room.
When looking at the trade from Houston’s perspective, the thought was a win-win situation at the expense of just about nothing. It got rid of two larger salaries in Brooks and Green that it wasn’t going to be prioritizing ahead of Sengun, Thompson and Tari Eason, while the No. 10 overall pick had a low shot of establishing a rotation role by the end of next year given how deep Houston was. If it didn’t work out, the Rockets would still have Sengun and Thompson entering their mid-20s by the time Durant’s contract expired.
The playoffs will ultimately tell the story. Houston’s performance in the first round last year bordered on embarrassing with how inept its offense was, falling to the seventh-seeded Warriors. Durant was brought in to solve that.
The Rockets could luck out and draw a Los Angeles Lakers group currently without Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves. They could also face two large threats in the Denver Nuggets or Minnesota Timberwolves. Beating either, or a healthier Lakers unit, would confirm Durant has guided Houston toward some progress. And if you’re the type to entertain a concept Durant often mocks, it would go a long way in reaffirming his legacy.
The Arizona Diamondbacks placed veteran first baseman Carlos Santana on the 10-day injured list with a strained right abductor and selected the contract of first baseman Luken Baker on Tuesday.
Santana’s IL designation is retroactive to Monday after he exited Sunday’s game and underwent an MRI on Monday.
To make room on the 40-man roster, Arizona moved outfielder Jordan Lawlar (fractured wrist) from the 10-day IL to the 60-day IL.
Lawlar went on the injured list on Friday after getting hit by a pitch on Thursday. Moving him to the 60-day IL means Lawlar will not return until June.
Santana signed a one-year deal with the Diamondbacks this offseason to provide plus defense at first base and veteran leadership.
He turned 40 years old on Wednesday and has gotten off to a slow start to his D-backs tenure at 2-for-24 at the plate.
Utility man Ildemaro Vargas took over at first base when Santana gingerly jogged off the field on Sunday and will start at the position on Tuesday against the New York Mets.
Tim Tawa has first base experience, as does rookie Jose Fernandez.
The Diamondbacks signed Baker to a minor league contract this offseason, inviting him to major league spring training.
Baker is a 6-foot-4 right-handed batter who has hit a home run and three doubles over his first nine games with Triple-A Reno. He went yard three times with a .960 OPS in 13 Cactus League games for Arizona.
The 29-year-old has played in 73 MLB games, all with the St. Louis Cardinals, and owns a .206/.317/.338 batting line. He has 145 career minor league home runs, going yard 83 times from 2023-25 in the minors.
Baker was a 2018 second-round pick out of TCU.
Luken Baker MISSILE 🚀
His first home run of the year goes 404 feet & 110 MPH off the bat 😳 pic.twitter.com/dJfUTxSAdH
— Reno Aces (@Aces) March 29, 2026
With Pavin Smith, Lawlar, Tyler Locklear and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. among Arizona’s position players on the injured list, the D-backs had to pull someone new onto the 40-man roster to fill in for Santana.
The club opted for Baker instead of bringing up a higher-regarded prospect playing in Triple-A Reno, such as Ryan Waldschmidt, Tommy Troy or LuJames Groover.
NEW YORK (AP) — New York Mets outfielder Juan Soto is projected to miss two to three weeks because of a strained right calf.
New York put the four-time All-Star on the 10-day injured list Monday, a move retroactive to Saturday. The Mets said the typical timeframe for a return to play for this type of injury is about two to three weeks.
Infielder Ronny Mauricio was recalled from Triple-A Syracuse.
Soto, 27, is in the second season of a record $765 million, 15-year contract. He is hitting .355 with one homer and five RBIs in eight games after batting .263 with 43 homers, 105 RBIs, 38 stolen bases, 127 walks and a .921 OPS in his first season with the Mets.
Soto was hurt Friday night trying to run from first to third during the Mets’ 10-3 win at San Francisco.
The Mets host the Arizona Diamondbacks for a three-game series beginning Tuesday.
The start times for the first two games have been moved up with cold weather and windy conditions expected.
The start times for the first two games of the Arizona Diamondbacks’ road series against the New York Mets have been adjusted due to expected cold weather and windy conditions.
First pitch is now slated for 1:10 p.m. MST for Tuesday and Wednesday after originally being scheduled for 4:10 p.m.
The series finale on Thursday between the two teams remains scheduled for 4:10 p.m. MST.
Both teams enter play Monday sitting second in their respective divisions.
Arizona is coming off back-to-back wins over the Atlanta Braves to wrap up a seven-game homestand and get back to .500 (5-5) ahead of a nine-game road trip.
The Diamondbacks start off in New York before three-game series against the Philadelphia Phillies and Baltimore Orioles.
The Mets, meanwhile, are coming off three straight wins over the San Francisco Giants to salvage a 4-3 mark on their seven-game road trip. They’re now 6-4 on the year.
New York now gets six games at home, beginning with Arizona on Tuesday.
– Tuesday: Zac Gallen (1-1) vs. Freddy Peralta (1-0)
– Wednesday: Ryne Nelson (0-1) vs. David Peterson (0-1)
– Thursday: Eduardo Rodriguez (0-0) vs. Nolan McLean (1-0)
