During the offseason when the Suns were targeting players for free agency, Yuta Watanabe was a player that was high on the Suns list before he eventually signed a 1-year deal to join Phoenix this Summer.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!One higher-up player that helped recruit Watanabe to the Suns was his former teammate Kevin Durant who has built quite the relationship with him over the past year and a half.
During training camp today, Durant talked about the offseason in which he helped get Watanabe to Phoenix and took us through the behind-the-scenes of what happened.
“Once they told me he was one of the guys that we (the Suns) were targeting I hit him up for sure.” Said Durant in terms of recruiting Watanabe. “I like being around Yuta, I love his journey he’s somebody that is a quiet guy but an extremely hard worker who loves to play basketball. It’s that simple to him. I enjoyed seeing his growth and his routine every single day when we were in Brooklyn so I wanted to continue that here in Phoenix.”
Watanabe and Durant were teammates last year for the Brooklyn Nets before Durant got traded to the Phoenix Suns. Now that they’re reunited in Phoenix, Durant explained how excited and pumped he was to be able to get him to come to Phoenix this season.
“I was very excited.” Said Durant talking about Watanabe. “I enjoyed playing with Yuta in Brooklyn. Such a bright Basketball player, he’s always in the right spot. Plays extremely hard on the defensive side of the ball as well and then on top of that his jumpshot has been getting better and better each year so we hope for big things from him this season. I love how everybody has been enjoying the way he has been playing and practice thus far and hopefully he keeps it up.”
Durant and Watanabe on the court together again will be a fun thing to watch for Suns fans this upcoming season. We will see how it all comes to fruition when the season starts on October 24th.
