At this point, every team in the NBA is going to try to make a run at Kevin Durant in free agency, but where he end up is anyone’s guess. The Washinton Wizards, Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers, Miami Heat are all organizations ready to drop the bank on KD, but another team has now surfaced to lock down the All-Star and they’re currently playing the Oklahoma City Thunder in the playoffs.
Of course, this all depends how the Thunder end their playoff run this season and an early exit almost guarantees Durantula will be on his way out of OKC.
According to ESPN’s Marc Stein, the San Antonio Spurs might be quietly be working towards signing KD, but they’d have to decide which players off the bench they’d have to part with to make it happen, cap space wise. Obviously, guys like Boris Diaw, Kyle Anderson, Danny Green and Patty Mills would have to go to make it happen. Not to mention the future of Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobli, who could retire.
“The theory (stress: theory) also holds that OKC success in this round against the 67-win Spurs would be enough, no matter what happens in a presumed Western Conference finals showdown with the Warriors, to convince Durant, at the very least, to sign a new two-year deal with Oklahoma City that contains a player option for Year 2. Going that route would thus allow Durant to not only give himself one more chance to win that breakthrough title in Thunder colors but also return to free agency in the summer of 2017 eligible for a contract that could be up to $40 million richer and do so alongside Westbrook, who’ll likewise have the opportunity to be aggressively courted by the masses for the first time after next season.”
We all saw how the Spurs lured LaMarcus Aldridge last year in free agency, pitching to him the system and a chance at the title, at the cost of role players like Tiago Splitter.
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