Rockets will soon regret granting Kevin Durant his wish if history repeats itself

It's official: Kevin Durant will become the newest member of the Houston Rockets. However, while this development presents a significant opportunity, what NBA history has shown us is that this may not end up being quite the dream scenario it appears to be right now.

Listen, I'm not trying to rain on the parade here. I feel for Rockets fans who waited half a decade to see their franchise finally have another superstar name on the roster. This is a moment worth celebrating, and this team will have the potential to achieve a lot. I just see this as a situation that requires a little context.

What I'm not saying is that Durant's move to Houston is doomed to fail. It's certainly not. There's a world in which the Rockets take a big step up this coming season and earn the top seed in the Western Conference, make a deep playoff run or even win a championship. I think all those things are legitimately on the table right now.

But what I am saying is that if things go south for KD in Houston, the situation could unravel rather quickly, and I just say that based on what we have seen from Kevin Durant's past stops around the association.

Number 35 could mesh extremely well with Alperen Sengun, Fred VanVleet, Amen Thompson and company. But if he doesn't right away, there's reason to think we could see some trouble in paradise.

Kevin Durant may or may not work out in Houston

Over the years, we have seen Durant desire a change of scenery and a fresh start in a new city on a few occasions. There have been multiple instances of situations where after arriving with his new team, things didn't exactly turn out like he envisioned.

You could start with Golden State as the first example. This one would be the outlier, given that he won two championships and two Finals MVPs with the Warriors. But just one year after his second title, things had changed enough for KD for him to want to seek out a new home.

Then in Brooklyn, Durant came one foot on the line away from a conference finals appearance, and perhaps a solid chance at an NBA championship as well, given that he would have taken down the eventual champion in the Milwaukee Bucks. From there, things only went downhill.

It was much of the same story in Phoenix. The Suns peaked in the 2022-23 season where they took the eventual champion Nuggets to six games, and Phoenix proceeded to take a step back in both of the following seasons Durant was there, leading to him pursuing a new direction yet again.

The moral of the story here is to not get too far ahead of ourselves with expectations for this iteration of the Houston Rockets. The addition of Kevin Durant will have the potential to transform this squad and elevate their ceiling, but there's also historical evidence that reminds us of some very real hiccups that could occur as well.