FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Sports

All the Shit That Had to Happen For Durant to End Up on the Warriors

A lot of things had to go right (or wrong) for Durant to wind up at Golden State.

Kevin Durant announced today on The Players' Tribune that he was leaving the Oklahoma City Thunder and joining the Golden State Warriors. It's a colossal move in the NBA as the most recent MVP not named Steph Curry joins Curry on an already stacked team that just won a record 73 wins. It feels like a move that almost never could have happened unless a large number of events happened in just the right—or wrong, depending on your perspective—way.

Advertisement

Oklahoma City and Golden State met in the Western Conference Finals this year, and the Thunder jumped out to a 3-1 series lead. Golden State then won the next four games—something only nine teams had done in NBA history—to advance to the Finals. Durant looked primed for a rematch of the 2012 Finals series again LeBron, this time with Cleveland instead of Miami, and then it was gone. It's hard to imagine Durant leaving OKC if they throttled the best team in history on their way to the Finals, no matter what the outcome of that series with Cleveland would have been.

Then the Warriors went up 3-1 on the Cavs, only to see LeBron do to them what they did to OKC. Without the Warriors doing something only nine teams had ever done, and the Cavaliers doing something no team in NBA history had ever done—within weeks of each other—Durant probably never leaves, and almost certainly doesn't choose Golden State if he does.

The loss likely motivated the Warriors to push hard for Durant. If they were the reigning two-time champs with the reigning two-time MVP, Durant looks more like a luxury they could afford to pass on while keeping together the core of a historic team. And that loss worked similarly for Durant; he might be more keenly aware of his legacy if he hops on a dynasty mid-ride. He is already taking heat for being "weak" and not "doing it the right way" for his decision to join a good team, and it would be much worse if Golden State had just wrapped up their second straight victory parade. But now, he can sell himself on the idea that he will be the historical game changer for a great team just getting started, putting them over the top in a clash of titans with Cleveland and LeBron.

The blowback he will face is also tempered by the reality of what he is leaving, too. Oklahoma City is essentially a stolen team. Durant was drafted in 2007 by the Seattle Supersonics, but played only his rookie season in Seattle because Clay Bennett bought the team and then moved it to Oklahoma City when Seattle wouldn't build him a new arena. A new basketball community—that has surely embraced its team, but nonetheless directly benefitted from the loss of an established basketball town—does not play as quite the victim that, say, Cleveland was back when LeBron went to a SuperTeam of his own.

This all happened against the backdrop of a time of great prosperity for the league, as 2016 marks the start of its nine-year $24 billion media rights deal with ESPN and Turner Sports. NBA players you never heard of are signing gigantic deals in free agency this year because the deal exploded the salary cap. With all that extra room to play with, teams are now able to stockpile the kind of talent they otherwise wouldn't have been able to and Golden State may be the most ideally situated team to exploit it. Steph Curry shot into the stratosphere of NBA stardom the past two years and will only be making $12 million next year. Klay Thompson will be making a just under $17 million. Kevin Durant's five-year deal with the Thunder ended after the conference finals loss to Golden State, the perfect time for him to wind up right where it all ended.

Interestingly, Durant chose not to have an opt out after the fourth year of the five-year contract he signed with Oklahoma City in 2010, as had been discussed. Had Durant gotten the opt out, he would have been a free agent last year. Perhaps he would have signed a one-year deal with the Thunder knowing the cap was going to blow up in 2016. Or maybe not. It's just another variable that could have added a level unpredictability. I mean, could anyone have predicted Monday's news?