“Durant’s list of preferred trade destinations contains three teams,” Stein wrote. “Yet it almost had four. The Stein Line has learned that the Knicks also would have featured on that list but were ultimately omitted when New York made it clear that it has decided against pursuing a trade for the NBA’s No. 8 all-time leading scorer.”

After his longest home-run drought in two seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers ended, Shohei Ohtani will be out for more in Sunday's series finale against the San Francisco Giants.

Any team committing what will likely be a nine-figure salary to Kuminga will have to believe the latter is true and be prepared to give him a sizable role.