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‘Mad respect’: After loss in Houston, Suns star Kevin Durant shows love to Rockets
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- ‘Mad respect’: After loss in Houston, Suns star Kevin Durant shows love to Rockets
HOUSTON— The Rockets have emerged as one of the better teams in the NBA over the past two seasons. Much of that traces back to the hiring of head coach Ime Udoka, who is on the verge of leading Houston back to the Western Conference playoffs for the first time since 2020.
Udoka's leadership, along with the young talent that comprises over half the playing rotation, is familiar to superstar forward Kevin Durant . Now with the Phoenix Suns , Durant remains one of the greatest basketball players ever to play the game — and he says the current Rockets (34-20, No. 4 in the West standings ) remind him a lot of his original NBA team, the Oklahoma City Thunder .
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"I got mad respect for teams like this," Durant said after Wednesday's eight-point loss to the Rockets at Toyota Center. "Struggling for a few years, draft young, get a coach that holds them accountable, holds them to a standard, and they start to take off. I can appreciate that because we were a young team when I came into the league like that."
Durant, who earlier this week became one of eight NBA players to score over 30,000 career points, has watched as Houston follows the late-2000s Oklahoma City blueprint. That Thunder team from the late 2000s and early 2010s also featured a pair of eventual Rockets in James Harden and Russell Westbrook .
"I know how hard it is to change your mentality, thinking we may go home every April to now we are in the playoffs," said Durant, who was outstanding in defeat with 37 points (68% FG) and 9 assists. "You can tell throughout the season that this team has built confidence."
Over the past two offseasons, the desire and work ethic to become better players led Rockets prospects Jalen Green and Jabari Smith Jr. to summertime workouts in Los Angeles with Durant, who is as dedicated to his offseason program as he is on the court. Although Smith is currently sidelined with a broken bone in his left hand, Durant watched Wednesday as Green scored 22 points to help lead his team to victory.
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In postgame comments, the future Hall of Famer joked that he may have shown Green too many of his tricks.
"I am going to stop letting their ass work with me," Durant joked. "JG, I mean, we built a good bond over the last few years, and to see his growth as a player, his confidence level has grown since he got into the league. Been working out with Jabari a couple of times, somebody I always watched when he was in high school, at Auburn."
"These guys just want to be great, man," he continued. "You in the gym all summer and you playing pickup, you go back from pickup to lifting weights to come back the next morning and do the same thing, you know it's gonna pay off at a certain point. So what I took from them is that the work ethic, attention to detail."
In recent weeks, prior to the NBA's in-season trade deadline for 2024-25, there was speculation that Durant could be a trade target for the Rockets (his current team, the Suns, is now 26-28). It never came to fruition, though it potentially could be revisited in the 2025 offseason — and particularly if Phoenix misses the playoffs and the Rockets advance.
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If so, it would reunite the 36-year-old with some of his former college and NBA teammates. It could also reunite him with Udoka, who Durant competed against and was coached by during his stint with the Brooklyn Nets a few years ago.
In his younger days, second-year Rockets guard/forward Amen Thompson was a member of Durant's AAU team. Should Durant eventually land in Houston, it would potentially be a dynamic pairing with a young prospect who has modeled some of his game after the former NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), two-time NBA champion, and Finals MVP.
"He is one of the best players ever," said Thompson, who recorded a triple-double in Wednesday's victory. "I used to play on his AAU team, so it was like a full-circle moment. I don't know if he knows that. I remember once he handed us SLAM magazines. I'm gonna find a picture of it."
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This article originally appeared on Rockets Wire: 'Mad respect': In defeat, Suns star Kevin Durant shows love to Rockets
