Heat didn't aggressively pursue Kevin Durant knowing they'd have to gut their roster to get him

“When I first heard about the Kevin Durant stuff, I was kind of blown away by it just because, you know, we’ve been so blessed here to have guys want to come,” Monty Williams said. “At the same time, ‘At the expense of what?’ was my thinking. And I like our team. I love our guys. But I wasn’t going to have conversations that didn’t need to be had.” “I think our guys are mature enough to understand that part of our business,” Williams said. “I didn’t want to have conversations about stuff that didn’t need to be brought up.” -via Arizona Republic / August 27, 2022

Shams Charania: The Knicks did make calls on Kevin Durant, from what I’m told. But I think both sides were cognizant they didn’t really have enough. -via Spotify / August 27, 2022

With the Kevin Durant trade drama over (for now), league focus has turned to the Mitchell trade and the Jazz want to get it done, reports Brian Windhorst of ESPN on his Hoop Collective podcast. “[Tim] MacMahon, you said, I believe last week, that you thought that the Jazz would make a Donovan Mitchell trade before the opener. And it sounds to me in talking to people around the league that the Jazz want to try to go even sooner than that. They want to go before training camp… “It does sound as I talk to folks in the league that the Jazz are trying to apply the gas here. To try to juice the offer, especially juice the offer from the New York Knicks.” -via NBC Sports / August 27, 2022