Kevin Durant has plenty of connections to this current Houston Rockets team.
Head coach Ime Udoka was an assistant with the Brooklyn Nets when Durant played there. Assistant coach Royal Ivey was his teammate with the Oklahoma City Thunder and like Durant, played college basketball at the University of Texas. Veteran Jeff Green played with both Ivey and Durant with the Thunder over a decade ago.
So Durant follows the Rockets closely, keeping tabs of their overall success this season, as well as the six-game losing skid that predicated their most recent two wins. He also works out in the summers with Jalen Green, Jabari Smith Jr. and Tari Eason.
After the Rockets beat Durant's short-handed Suns on Wednesday night, the future Hall of Famer had nothing but good things to say about this young team.
“I got mad respect for teams like this who are struggling for a few years, draft young, get a coach that holds them accountable, holds them to a standard and they start to take off,” Durant told reporters after the game. “I appreciate that because we were a young team when I was coming into the league like that and I know how hard it is to change a mentality from, we might go home in April every year to now we're in the playoffs. You can tell throughout the season, this team has built confidence. But, you know, they get a little bit comfortable, too. They lose five or six in a row because they're happy and they playing well but then see coach snap them back into it."
Ultimately, he sees the hunger and desire to be great from Houston's young nucleus.
"These guys just want to be great, man," Durant added. "You in the gym all summer and you playing pickup, you go back from pickup to lifting weights to come back the next morning and do the same thing, you know it's gonna pay off at a certain point. So what I took from them is that the work ethic, attention to detail."
It's no wonder the Rockets are favorites to land Durant if the Suns trade him this summer.