Draymond Green did not agree with Phoenix Suns general manager James Jones on his comments that the Suns want to be the first team to “maximize Kevin Durant,” as “no one” has been able to do before.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!“I was baffled when I watched James Jones make this comment,” said Green, who played with Durant on the Warriors from 2016-19, on “The Draymond Green Show.” “I get you got to see the whole interview, sometimes when we go down those rabbit holes we go a little too far. James Jones was on a team in 2017 that lost in the NBA Finals to Kevin Durant. And Kevin Durant averaged 35 (points), eight rebounds, five assists on 55% from the field, 47% from 3, 93% shooting (from the free-throw line).
“When you got your a– bust like the Cavs got their a– bust, I have a hard time believing that James Jones could then come out and say ‘No one has been able to maximize Kevin Durant.’ When your team does not have plays to get Kevin Durant coming off a pin down, get Kevin Durant catching the ball at the elbow with a live dribble, getting Kevin Durant to the spots that Kevin Durant want to get to and likes to score from. When your team is set up that way, I’m sorry, but you didn’t maximize Kevin Durant. But don’t say nobody has maximized Kevin because you’ve been on the wrong side of Kevin Durant being maximized.”
"You've been on the wrong side of Kevin Durant being maximized"
—@Money23Green responds to James Jones saying nobody has maximized KD yet pic.twitter.com/L58cd87zJb
— The Volume (@TheVolumeSports) May 3, 2024
Jones played on the Cleveland Cavaliers from 2014-17, meaning he squared off against Durant in the Finals one time with Cleveland in 2017, as Green points out, when the Warriors won the series 4-1. Durant won Finals MVP this season, and also won it the next season against the Cavs in the 2018 NBA Finals, but Jones had retired by then.
Jones also was with the Miami Heat in the 2011-12 season when they defeated a then 23-year-old Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder 4-1 in the NBA Finals.
Here was the full quote from Jones:
“A constant focus for us is to continue to figure out how to maximize Kevin Durant,” Jones said. “No one’s done it yet. I believe we’d be the first team to do it. Because if we can maximize him, we can maximize our entire roster (and) we’re a better team. But that’s not an issue. I think Kevin had a phenomenal season this year offensively. I think there’s a stretch, he had some of the best stretches of his career this year. So it wasn’t an offensive thing, it wasn’t just a utilization or usage thing. It was just the totality of figuring out when and where and how to do it together. We just could not get on the same page. We ran out of time.
“I think if you ask Kevin, he’ll tell you, Kevin enjoys playing the game, we enjoy him playing the game. And when he’s playing at the highest level, he makes us a really, really good team and we’re damn near unbeatable. And you saw that at times this year. But like every great player what we may view as being like, awesome, Kevin thinks isn’t good enough. Because he wants to be great. That’s why he’s a Hall of Famer. And so the moment he becomes satisfied with the way he’s playing, I think that’ll be the moment he’ll tell you that it’s probably time to think about something differently.”
For context, this question was brought up after The Athletic’s Shams Charania released a story detailing some of the frustrations in the Suns’ locker room, including with Durant:
“Meanwhile, Durant, among the best scorers in NBA history, was not always happy with how he was used. Sources briefed on the matter told The Athletic that Durant never felt comfortable with his role in Phoenix’s offense alongside Booker and Beal this season. Those sources said Durant had persistent issues with the offense, feeling that he was being relegated to the corner far too often and not having the proper designs to play to his strengths as the offense was built around pick-and-rolls. At the same time, some teammates and people close to the organization believed Durant needed to voice his concerns more adamantly and directly with Vogel and his coaching staff.”
Durant played in 75 games this season, his most since his 2018-19 campaign with the Warriors.
Even at age 35 and five years removed from an Achilles tear, Durant still averaged the fifth-most points in the NBA this year at 27.1 per game on 52.3/41.3/85.6 shooting splits to go along with 6.6 rebounds and 5.0 assists.
James Jones wants Suns to be the first team to ‘maximize Kevin Durant’
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Brendan Mau is a senior writer covering the Phoenix Suns and more for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on X via @Brendan_Mau
