Rockets continue to win Kevin Durant trade as former guard struggles in new home

The Houston Rockets made a bold move last summer, moving on from high-octane guard Jalen Green and defensive stalwart Dillon Brooks to bring in Kevin Durant. Not only has the move worked out for Houston, but Green's struggles on his new team have only cemented this as a win for the Rockets.

Ask the average Rockets fan about this season, and they likely will speak of it as a disappointment. At the time of writing, Houston sits in fifth place in the Western Conference, and no one views them as a serious title contender. That's not where they hoped to be when they made the trade for Kevin Durant last summer.

It's also hard to pin that disappointment, such as it is, on Durant. The Rockets lost Fred VanVleet before the season, their starting point guard, and Steven Adams was lost after he played just 32 games. And for all that it feels like a disappointment, the Rockets will likely finish with 52 or 53 wins and host a first-round series, with both an offense and a defense that rank in the Top 10. A disaster, this year was not.

Kevin Durant has delivered

For his part, Durant has been all that the Rockets needed him to be. He has averaged 25.8 points per game, 5.4 rebounds, 4.7 assists and knocked down 41.3 percent of his 5.8 3-point attempts per game. He has been their only consistent source of offense all season long, as Amen Thompson struggled to level up and Alperen Sengun struggled with inconsistency.

Durant already made his 16th All-Star appearance and will probably be on an All-NBA team. He has also been healthy, appearing in 76 games and counting. He will probably log the most minutes in a season since he led the league in 2013-14. Whatever the Rockets hoped to get from Durant, he gave them.

The Rockets didn't give up much

It helps that the package the Rockets sent to the Phoenix Suns for Durant has not turned into a mountain of regret. Dillon Brooks has had a solid season and seems to have had a strong impact on the defensive culture in Phoenix, but he isn't a star, and Houston had multiple options to replace him.

The 10th overall pick was used on Khaman Maluach, a towering center who entered the league raw and hasn't put things together yet. Perhaps he becomes a two-way force in the middle, but that is theoretical upside that hasn't been realized yet. It doesn't appear that Houston gave up the next Rudy Gobert.

The final meaningful piece of the trade was Jalen Green, a shoot-first, shoot-second scoring guard entering his fifth season in the league. The Rockets had signed him to a relatively team-friendly contract extension that allowed him to operate as matching salary in the trade, and they made a bet that he wouldn't turn into a superstar after they moved on from him.

So far, so good, as Green has struggled mightily in Phoenix. He has battled injuries all year long, playing in just 31 games thus far for the Suns. When he has been on the court, he has been a high-volume disaster, needing 16.5 shots per game to average 18.3 points. He is shooting just 42.4 percent from the field and 31.4 percent from 3-point range, and his free throws have dropped off significantly in both volume and accuracy.

An inefficient high-volume shooting guard who doesn't make plays for others and doesn't defend his position is hardly a star on any team, but certainly not on one where Devin Booker is entrenched as an efficient high-volume shooting guard who does make plays for others. Green was always an awkward fit, but now he is trending downwards as a player overall.

The Rockets won the trade

There is time for Houston to regret this deal. Jalen Green could turn the corner. Khaman Maluach could blossom into a defensive monster. Durant could suffer a calf injury this week and miss the playoffs. There is much still to be written on this trade.

For now, however, consider Houston the clear winner. They bought low on an all-time star and he has delivered, while the package they sent out has failed to impress. That's a slam dunk of a trade, and one that Houston likely makes every time out.

Now they hope the young players around Durant can play well enough for a deep postseason run.