Report: There is ‘increasing belief’ that Kevin Durant ends up with the Warriors

Kevin Durant seems far removed from the last time he played for the Golden State Warriors. His final season with the Warriors came in the 2018-19 campaign, and he has played for two more teams in the Brooklyn Nets and Phoenix Suns since his time in Golden State came to a close.

But a report from Grant Afseth indicates that there’s a real possibility that Durant will soon play alongside Stephen Curry on the Warriors once again. There reportedly exists an “increasing belief” that Durant will end up getting dealt to his former team before the trade deadline on Feb. 6.

It’s not hard to see why the Warriors have allegedly been aggressive in their pursuit of Durant considering how dominant they were in his three seasons with the team.

Golden State captured two championships in three years with Durant on the roster, and if it weren’t for poor injury luck in the 2019 NBA Finals, perhaps the Warriors would have won three in a row. Durant suffered a torn Achilles in Game 5 of the championship series against the Toronto Raptors, and Golden State lost to Kawhi Leonard and company in six games.

The Warriors have not been the dominant team they once were since Durant left for the Nets in free agency. Golden State has won only one title — in 2022 — following Durant’s departure, and the team could be in danger of missing the playoffs for the second year in a row this season if it can’t get back to its winning ways soon.

After Golden State started the campaign on a hot streak, winning 12 of its first 15 games, it has been playing mediocre basketball for a long time now and sits barely above the .500 mark on the season at 25-24.

Golden State’s final game prior to the deadline is a road matchup against the Utah Jazz on Wednesday night. Utah owns the worst record in the Western Conference at this juncture at 11-37 and has come up short in all but one of its past 10 games. The Jazz earned a victory over Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner and the Orlando Magic not long ago on Feb. 1.