Can the Nuggets counter Kevin Durant to the Suns? Should they?

The Nuggets’ road to an NBA Championship this season was never going to be easy. We all knew that. But it got a whole lot harder Wednesday night.

Kevin Durant is on his way to Phoenix. The Suns are acquiring the All-Everything forward from the Brooklyn Nets for a package that includes Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson, Jae Crowder and four future 1st round picks.

The Nets are trading Kevin Durant to the Phoenix Suns for a package including Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson, four first-round picks and additional draft compensation, league sources tell @TheAthletic @Stadium. https://t.co/fJoFHv3i7M

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) February 9, 2023

Phoenix is in the middle of a rocky season that’s included a Devin Booker injury, chemistry issues within its roster, and a change in ownership. But the Suns seem to be on the other side of most of that now. Booker is back in the lineup, their new owner Mat Ishbia is obviously committed to winning, and, well, now they’ve got Durant.

The Suns are going to be very, very good with a Durant, Booker, Chris Paul, Deandre Ayton and “player x” starting five. They also got TJ Warren back from Brooklyn in the trade. Phoenix will be a favorite for almost everyone that hits the buyout market too.

Of course, Durant to the Suns puts pressure on the West-leading Nuggets to make a countermove before Thursday’s 3 pm MT trade deadline. If the Nuggets were going to execute a trade by tomorrow afternoon it was always going to be a marginal transaction (in a pre-Durant in the West world). Bones Hyland has been out of the rotation for the last week and on the trade block. I’m sure the Nuggets would listen on offers for other members of their second unit too.

But there were never going to be fireworks in Denver heading up to this year’s deadline. I’ve even gotten the sense over the last couple of days that if the Nuggets couldn’t find a trade for Hyland that they felt really good about, he could remain in Denver past Thursday afternoon. The situation seemed almost untenable last week but feels like it has calmed down since. As long as the Nuggets are confident Hyland won’t be a distraction, maybe he stays if a favorable deal doesn’t materialize and you reassess his trade market/future in Denver in the summer.

Does this Durant news change the Nuggets’ thinking?

I have to believe it makes Calvin Booth think more aggressively. It should make him push harder for deals.

All-NBA defender Mikal Bridges could be available now that he’s in Brooklyn. The Nets also employ, for the moment, Dorian Finney Smith (acquired in the Kyrie Irving trade), Royce ONeal and Crowder. OG Anunoby has been on the trade block all season in Toronto. Like Bridges, his price will be ultra-steep and I don’t think the Nuggets’ available assets (Hyland, Christian Braun, Zeke Nnaji, rookie Peyton Watson and draft capital) even get them in the room with other teams who would be bidding for those two’s services. Denver only has one future 1st round pick it can trade, which isn’t until 2029. Finney-Smith, ONeal and Crowder are more realistic targets.

Any of those players would help the Nuggets’ defense in a playoff series against the Suns. Finding another defender to check Booker, Durant, Irving, Luka Doncic, and whoever the Nuggets run into in the postseason would be a great addition.

But here’s what I always come back to in these instances: Adding another wing defender would help, but it’s not going to be the reason Denver wins a championship this season.

If the Nuggets do break through this year and bring the Larry O’Brien trophy to Denver, it will be because no one can figure out how to stop the most efficient offense in NBA history. It will be because Nikola Jokic has solved basketball and the Jokic-Murray two-man game is unguardable (Phoenix still has no chance at stopping Denver by the way). It will be because the Nuggets’ No. 1 rated clutch defense translates to the playoffs.

It will be because the deep-rooted chemistry that’s been formed in the Nuggets’ locker room over the last several seasons trumps a Suns super team and other contenders who were pieced together on the fly. It will be because the battles that this core has been through have turned the Nuggets into the most mentally tough team in the NBA.

That’s the Nuggets’ path to a championship. If they get there, it will be because they played their way. Their style. Their brand of basketball.

In the age of player empowerment, Denver built its roster how you used to, before contracts didn’t matter and superstars forced their way out of toxic situations that they themselves created. The Nuggets have drafted and developed three starters. That’s practically unheard of these days. They have a coach who’s been at the helm for this entire era that started with a 33-win season in 2015. They’re a mid-market franchise that had to get a little lucky, and then opted to exercise extreme patience in an era when no one seems to have any of it. They did it the old-fashioned way.

If the Nuggets actually pull a championship off this season, it will be even sweeter after Wednesday’s bombshell.