Kevin Durant told Melissa Rohlin of Fox Sports that he’s not frustrated with the Phoenix Suns and is not looking to get traded.
Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN said on December 25 that Durant was frustrated with his situation with the Suns. However, the future Hall of Famer told Rohlin that Wojnarowski was wrong.
“I don’t want to get traded,” Durant said. “I’m not frustrated because Brad was injured. I wasn’t frustrated because of the role players on the team. That s— really was ignorant to me, you know what I’m saying? It’s like, yeah, we lose a game – you think I’m supposed to be happy after we lose a game? You know what I’m saying? I’m not frustrated with the whole situation. I may be frustrated at the moment, at a bad play or a tough stretch. But nah, I enjoy the grind.”
The Suns, despite having Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal, are only 19-18 on the season. They are in ninth place in the Western Conference standings. However, Durant is not looking to jump ship.
“That whole few days was so trash to me because it was all speculation about what I may be thinking based off of body language; I’m not smiling enough,” Durant said. “…There wasn’t even no smoke there. That was just one game, man. Everyone needed something to write right before Christmas.”
Durant is averaging 29.6 points, 6.4 rebounds and 5.9 assists on the season while shooting 52.5% from the field, 47.4% from beyond the arc and 87.5% from the free-throw line. The two-time champion is making $46.4 million.
“I love that we’re struggling almost because we can learn from it and get better and move forward from it,” Durant said. “Obviously, I don’t love struggling. But I like finding good things out of winning basketball games. The more film we watch, the more pride we take. The tougher it is, the better we’ll become from it. That’s my mentality the whole time.”