By Mark Bacon
More than $2 billion has been spent on NBA free agents over the weekend. And the basketball universe went to sleep last night knowing it could change forever later today.
For the past two years, at least, the thought of Kevin Durant’s free agency has hung over the league like a low-lying fog. Despite all that’s happened — the Golden State Warriors emerging as a superpower, LeBron James ending Cleveland’s 52-year championship drought, Kobe Bryant exiting the stage after 20 years in Los Angeles and so much more — Durant’s impending ability to test the open market is the dominant conversation.
Even as Durant was leading the Oklahoma City Thunder past the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference semifinals, then fighting the Warriors to within a few baskets of a trip to the NBA Finals in an all-time classic series one round later, the topic of where Durant might play next season existed as a subtext of both series.
Now, all of that is in the past. Three days full of meetings between Durant, his team and the five other franchises vying for his services — the Warriors, Spurs, Los Angeles Clippers, Boston Celtics and Miami Heat — have ended with Durant seemingly mulling over the only choice everyone ever thought he would have to make: staying in Oklahoma City or going to Golden State. (Boston is still rumored to be an outlier.)
It’s easy to see why this isn’t be easy for Durant. He has spent his entire nine-year career with this franchise, the past eight playing alongside fellow superstar Russell Westbrook and, for most of that stretch, on a team that’s been one of the NBA’s best under General Manager Sam Presti.
On the other hand, Golden State is coming off a 73-win season and a hard-fought loss to James and the Cavaliers in a seven-game Finals. Playing alongside Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green (AND Andre Iguodala), Durant could be part of as star-studded a team as the NBA has ever seen — even outstripping what James did by teaming up with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh with the Miami Heat back in 2010. Durant would make the Warriors into the biggest show in sports, a traveling circus of winning the likes of which only the storied Celtics and Lakers teams of yore, and those Heat teams will have ever approached replicating.
Durant’s free agency is coinciding with a massive spike in the NBA’s salary cap — thanks to the introduction of the league’s new massive television contract — means the Warriors and the other teams competing for Durant’s services can do so without having to gut their rosters like teams trying to chase stars of his caliber have in the past. That has undoubtedly made it easier for Durant to be possibly poached off of Oklahoma City’s roster.
And if he does wind up leaving for the Bay Area, it could lead to more seismic changes for the league come the next round of collective bargaining. Despite the record amounts of money thrown around the past few days, both the players and owners could find reasons to opt out of the current agreement when both sides have the option to in December. Remember, when the last agreement expired in 2011, the league set about to try to find ways to prevent a super team like the 2010 Heat from ever happening again.
It’s easy to see how a similar situation could happen during the next round of negotiations after this weekend’s money orgy, if the Warriors are able to do the same thing today.
Durant could choose to remain where he’s been his whole career, potentially setting up the start of the NBA’s next great rivalry between two teams with at least five likely Hall of Famers between them.
As the league wakes up today to celebrate the Fourth of July, it will await Durant’s decision. The stakes have never been higher. All that could change is the course of NBA history.
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