NBA Summer League is winding down and league executives are heading home (or on European vacations), making this the time of year when the free agent and trade market typically slows down.
This year there are some bigger names still hanging out there — Collin Sexton, Montrezl Harrell, the Donovan Mitchell sweepstakes — but this is the point in the summer when teams have largely assembled their rosters and are looking ahead.
That may be the case in Brooklyn. Kevin Durant asked for a trade but the first round of offers did not impress the Nets, who saw what Utah got for Rudy Gobert and expected more.
Now add in the offer-sheet-then-matching that keeps Deandre Ayton in Phoenix (for now) and it comes down to this simple truth — there is no bidding war for Durant.