Report: Phoenix Suns targeting LeBron James to join forces with Kevin Durant

Per NBA insider Evan Sidery, the Phoenix Suns reportedly hope to pair LeBron James with another one of the league’s older stars in Kevin Durant.

James and Durant have battled each other in the playoffs on several occasions throughout the years. They have faced off in the NBA Finals three times.

The 39-year-old got the better of Durant’s Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2012 NBA Finals, but Durant won the two most recent matchups in the 2017 and 2018 NBA Finals.

Both Durant’s Suns and James’ Los Angeles Lakers were eliminated early on in the 2024 NBA Playoffs.

Starting with the Lakers, after making the Western Conference Finals the year before, the team fell to the Denver Nuggets in five games in the first round.

But the Suns’ stint in the 2024 NBA Playoffs was arguably even more disappointing. Despite boasting a trio composed of some of the top scorers in the NBA in Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal, the Minnesota Timberwolves swept Phoenix in the opening round.

To add insult to injury, arguably only one of the four games of the series came down to the wire. The lone game Phoenix didn’t lose by 12 points or more came in the deciding Game 4, when the Suns fell by just six points.

Perhaps a playmaker of James’ caliber to complement their trio of elite scorers is what the Suns need in order to make a deep run in the 2025 NBA Playoffs. James is one of the greatest passers the game has ever seen, as he ranks fourth in NBA history in regular-season assists and second behind only former Lakers floor general Magic Johnson in playoff assists.

Furthermore, across 71 games played (all starts) with Los Angeles during the 2023-24 regular season, James averaged a team-high 8.3 assists per contest.

After competing against one another for such a long time, it would be poetic to see two of the best players of their generation in James and Durant finally join forces.