As the NBA Finals lurches toward a winner-take-all Game 7, we enter the league’s true silly season. Not free agency, not the draft...conspiracy season. And how could it not be? The dots are practically begging to be connected.

You see Orlando sling four first-round picks and a swap to Memphis for Desmond Bane. Desmond Bane! A sniper, sure, but a guy with zero All-Star nods and not a whiff of All-NBA. And just as you start scratching your head, the itch travels to your frontal lobe because then you remember: Luka Doncic was just traded to the Lakers. For Anthony Davis, Max Christie, and one first-round pick. One. Singular. Uno.

Then the real fun begins. The newly Luka-fied Lakers get sold for $10 billion, instantly boosting the valuation of every franchise across the league. The NBA smiles. Expansion talks heat up. And the Mavericks? They get rewarded like good little corporate soldiers with the No. 1 pick in the draft despite holding a sad little 1.8% chance.

And that pick? It’s Cooper Flagg. The ultimate prize. The golden goose with a killer first step and vision that sees through walls. The league’s next great connector gifted to a franchise that just played ball with the NBA in the most literal sense possible.

Coincidence? Maybe. But come on. This is the NBA. Where nothing ever really happens in isolation, and everything has a scent of staging. rozen envelopes n’ such. So yeah, who doesn’t love a good conspiracy? Especially when it smells like success, sweat, and a backroom handshake.

So as we all sit here waiting for the Phoenix Suns to finally pull the trigger on the Kevin Durant deal, there’s a small, shadowy part of your brain, the part where the conspiracies live, that starts whispering.

What if the league asked them to wait?

I mean, think about it. We’re on the doorstep of the first NBA Finals Game 7 since 2016. The basketball world is locked in. And suddenly, trading Kevin Durant could shatter the narrative like a rogue sledgehammer. This isn’t Desmond Bane we’re talking about (and no offense to the Bane Brigade, but come on). This is a top-15 all-time player. A global icon. A walking headline.

So maybe Adam Silver and Co. made a quiet call. A subtle, soft-spoken nudge. Something like, “Let’s not hijack the moment.” Let Game 7 breathe. Let the eyes stay fixed on the court. Protect the crown jewel event of the season from being overshadowed by a megaton trade that would dominate the news cycle for a week.

OK, fine. I’ll fold up the tin foil hat and tuck it back in the drawer. Maybe the league didn’t step in. Maybe no one pulled strings or whispered behind closed doors. Maybe the Suns are just taking their sweet time to get this right.

There’s no official deadline looming. No red blinking clock in the war room forcing a Saturday decision. Sure, they’d like to move Durant before the draft to squeeze value out of a pick or two. But if the right deal’s not there? They’ll wait. We’ll wait. The whole damn league will wait.

Because eventually, this thing’s going down. You don’t dangle Durant and walk it back. The only question is when. And until then, we live in limbo, half watching Game 7, half checking for that inevitable trade notification that’s coming.

Just…not yet.

---

, or Castbox.

Please subscribe, rate, and review.