The Houston Rockets are acquiring 15-time All-Star and four-time Olympic gold medalist Kevin Durant from the Phoenix Suns in a blockbuster deal struck Sunday, a person with knowledge of the agreement told The Associated Press.
The Rockets are giving up Dillon Brooks, Jalen Green and six future picks — including the No. 10 selection in Wednesday’s opening round of this year’s draft — according to the person who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the deal was still pending NBA approval.
It ends weeks of speculation about where Durant would end up. Many teams were involved at various times, including Miami and Minnesota, but in the end Phoenix accepted the Rockets’ offer.
ESPN first reported the trade.
Fans learned of the news while Durant was on stage in New York at Fanatics Fest NYC, and when they began reacting, Durant started smiling broadly.
“We're gonna see, man,” Durant said from the stage. “We're gonna see.”
Boardroom, the ever-growing media company that Durant and his business partner, Rich Kleiman, co-founded in 2019, teams up with Fanatics on a number of projects. The panel that Durant was set to appear on there Sunday was called “Global Game Changers.”
He certainly figures to change the game for the Rockets.
Houston finished No. 2 in the Western Conference in the regular season, albeit 16 games behind No. 1 Oklahoma City. It now adds a two-time champion to its young core as it looks to make another jump next season.
Durant averaged 26.6 points this season, his 17th in the NBA — not counting one year missed because of injury. For his career, the 6-foot-11 forward is averaging 27.2 points and seven rebounds per game.
The move brings Durant back to the state of Texas, where he played his one year of college basketball for the Longhorns and was the college player of the year before going as the No. 2 pick in the 2007 draft by Seattle.
Houston will become his fifth franchise, joining the SuperSonics (who then became the Oklahoma City Thunder), Golden State, Brooklyn and Phoenix. Durant won his two titles with the Warriors in 2017 and 2018, and last summer in Paris he became the highest-scoring player in U.S. Olympic basketball history and the first men's player to be part of four gold-medal teams.
Durant is a four-time scoring champion, a two-time Finals MVP and one of eight players in NBA history with more than 30,000 career points, joining the club on Feb. 11.
Durant is under contract next season for roughly $50 million before becoming a free agent in 2026.
His departure from the Suns was expected and ends a disappointing 2 1/2 years in the desert. Durant never enjoyed consistent team success despite being part of a trio that included star guards Devin Booker and Bradley Beal.
Durant was acquired by the Suns from the Brooklyn Nets in a four-team trade-deadline deal in 2023, just days after new owner Mat Ishbia bought the team for roughly $4 billion. Phoenix gave up a lot to acquire the then-34-year-old, sending young standouts Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson, along with four future first-round picks, to Brooklyn.
AP Sports Writer David Brandt in Phoenix contributed to this report.
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FILE - Phoenix Suns forward Kevin Durant gestures during the second half of an NBA basketball game on March 9, 2025, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)
MONROE, Wash. (AP) — A blast of arctic air is sweeping south from Canada and spreading into parts of the northern U.S., while residents of the Pacific Northwest brace for possible mudslides and levee failures from floodwaters that are expected to be slow to recede.
The catastrophic flooding has forced thousands of people to evacuate, including Eddie Wicks and his wife, who live amid sunflowers and Christmas trees on a Washington state farm next to the Snoqualmie River. As they moved their two donkeys to higher ground and their eight goats to their outdoor kitchen, the water began to rise much quicker than anything they had experienced before.
As the water engulfed their home Thursday afternoon, deputies from the King County Sheriff’s Office marine rescue dive unit were able to rescue them and their dog, taking them on a boat the half-mile (800 meters) across their field, which had been transformed into a lake. The rescue was captured on video.
In Snohomish County, Washington, north of Seattle, emergency officials on Saturday led federal, state and local officials on a tour of the devastation.
“It’s obvious that thousands and thousands of Washingtonians and communities all across our state are in the process of digging out, and that’s going to be a challenging process,” Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson said.
“It’s going to be expensive,” he said. “It’s going to be time consuming, and it’s going to be potentially dangerous at times. So I think we’re seeing here in Monroe is what we’re going to be seeing all across the state, and that’s what’s got our focus right now.”
As the Pacific Northwest begins to recover from the deluge, a separate weather system is already bringing dangerous wind-chill values — the combination of cold air temperatures and wind — to parts of the Upper Midwest.
Shortly before noon Saturday, it was minus 12 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 24 degrees Celsius) in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where the wind chill value meant that it felt like minus 33 F (minus 36 C), the National Weather Service said.
For big cities like Minneapolis and Chicago, the coldest temperatures were expected late Saturday night into Sunday morning. In the Minneapolis area, low temperatures were expected to drop to around minus 15 F (minus 26 C), by early Sunday morning. Lows in the Chicago area are projected to be around 1 F(minus 17 C) by early Sunday, the weather service said.
The Arctic air mass was expected to continue pushing south and east over the weekend, expanding into Southern states by Sunday.
The National Weather Service on Saturday issued cold weather advisories that stretched as far south as the Alabama state capital city of Montgomery, where temperatures late Sunday night into Monday morning were expected to plummet to around 22 F (minus 6 C). To the east, lows in Savannah, Georgia, were expected to drop to around 24 F (minus 4 C) during the same time period.
The cold weather freezing much of the country comes as residents in the Pacific Northwest endure more misery after several days of flooding. Thousands of people have been forced to evacuate towns in the region as an unusually strong atmospheric river dumped a foot (30 centimeters) or more of rain in parts of western and central Washington over several days and swelled rivers, inundating communities and prompting dramatic rescues from rooftops and vehicles.
Many animals were also evacuated as waters raged over horse pastures, barns and farmland. At the peak of evacuations, roughly 170 horses, 140 chickens and 90 goats saved from the flood waters were being cared for at a county park north of Seattle, said Kara Underwood, division manager of Snohomish County Parks. Most of those animals were still at the park on Saturday, she said.
The record floodwaters were expected to continue to slowly recede Saturday, but authorities warn that waters will remain high for days, and that there is still danger from potential levee failures or mudslides. There is also the threat of more rain forecast for Sunday. Officials have conducted dozens of water rescues as debris and mudslides have closed highways and raging torrents have washed out roads and bridges.
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Associated Press writers Hallie Golden in Seattle and Jeff Martin in Atlanta contributed.
A man pushes a truck through a neigbhorhood flooded by the Skagit River on Friday, Dec. 12, 2025, in Burlington. (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear)
An aerial view shows homes surrounded by floodwaters in Snohomish, Wash., Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear)
Emergency crews, including National Guard soldiers, wort in a neighborhood flooded by the Skagit River on Friday, Dec. 12, 2025, in Burlington, Wash. (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear)
