Ben DuBose

You're taking out two guys that were very consistent with their effort, with their defense, with how they play the game.

And you added in, you know, KD's always professional, but when you add a 37-year-old, there's going to be some nights where they don't always have their legs, right?

That's inherent with that type of player.

He's also, as your leading scorer, it's a completely different archetype.

You don't want to ask him to anchor your defense.

He can do it at times.

I thought he was great against Wemby in the fourth quarter the other night.

But it's just a different archetype.

So ideally, you'd have DFS to help fill what Dylan gave you.

But to this point, it hasn't really worked out.

Hopefully that changes in the second half of the year.

And then Reid defensively is a downgrade from Jalen, at least on subnights.

So you had to give to get.

And I think what the Rockets concluded was, hey, we can find a way to get back to where we were over 82 games.

We'll find a way to get back.

And then once we get in that situation in the playoffs...

we'd rather gamble on the upside formula, which means Kevin Durant and Reed Shepard.

And that's how I'm choosing to look at it.

Like maybe there's a world where if you had Fred Dunfleet, it would be closer to an add-on, but especially without Fred, it's just sort of like you had to give to get.

And so the Suns said, we're not close enough to a title for that upside to be worth it.