Good morning! Yep, the Suns traded a bunch for Kevin Durant

The re-armament of the Western Conference continues apace.

Good morning.

Let’s basketball.

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Sunrise

In the wee hours of Thursday morning, the Brooklyn Nets agreed to send Kevin Durant to the Phoenix Suns. This trade rumor has been floating around since Durant requested a trade in the summer, went dormant as the situation cooled off in Brooklyn, and heated back up after Kyrie Irving’s trade request and move to Dallas within the past six days. But still, the blockbuster trade came a little out of nowhere if only because TRADING KEVIN FREAKING DURANT IS A BIG FREAKING DEAL.

The actual haul Phoenix sent to Brooklyn is pretty massive: Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson, four unprotected first-round picks and a swap option. Oh, and Jae Crowder. The Suns retain Devin Booker, Deandre Ayton and Chris Paul to team with Durant, with Book, Ayton and KD all under long-term contracts. They get T.J. Warren back in the deal, too. (Warren’s triumphant return to Phoenix!) Torrey Craig is probably your fifth starter, and the depth is looking a little thin. But to add KEVIN DURANT? You’re going to have to make some allowances.

Adding Durant to a team with Devin Booker, that’s a contender as long as they are healthy and together. The Suns are gunning to return to the top of the league and stay there for a few years, and the cost is their future once KD’s career runs out of gas or his contract comes up and he looks for greener land. Notably, the Suns are one of the franchises that has never won a championship. Mat Ishbia just took over majority control of the team this week. If he can deliver a title to the Valley of the Sun within the next couple of years, they’ll build him a statue. So it’s no wonder he agreed to take the plunge, with Woj reporting that he personally negotiated with Nets franchisee Joe Tsai to close the deal.

Talks had progressed and stalled, and the Suns appeared to be pivoting toward a three-way deal that might've landed them Atlanta's John Collins sometime Thursday morning, sources said. On the direction of his new owner, Mat Ishbia, general manager James Jones texted Nets GM Sean Marks sometime after 11 p.m. ET -- and it wouldn't be long until Ishbia and Nets owner Joe Tsai had cobbled together the final elements of the blockbuster trade, sources said.

The Nets did as well as anyone could expect here, as hard as it must be to trade a top-15 player all-time and a current top-5 player when healthy, especially in the middle of a playoff-bound season.