This week’s conjectural nonsense from ESPN about the possibility the Thunder will deal Kevin Durant next season — simply because Russell Westbrook set the NBA on fire to end February — might be the biggest reason KD feels we, the media, “don’t know sh*t.” His general manager might feel the same way as he told the Oklahoman‘s Darnell Mayberry.
https://twitter.com/DarnellMayberry/status/575811716581191681/photo/1
A few former MVPs have been traded from the team they won an MVP with (Wilt Chamberlain, Steve Nash, Shaquille O’Neal), but only Moses Malone was traded the year after he won an MVP award. Malone was dealt to the 76ers after winning an MVP in 1982 with the Rockets. He promptly won his third MVP with the Sixers that next year, and also led them to a title and won the Finals MVP (Hinkie would have traded him again after that).
Obviously the Thunder aren’t dealing Kevin Durant this year, but why would they unload him next season? Oh, that’s right, Penn thinks the Thunder — a cash-strapped small-market team — can’t afford to pay KD the max he will get when his contract runs out in the summer of 2016. Or, he thinks Durant will flee in order to find a better situation to win #Ringz.
Remember, the colossal new TV-rights deal kicks in the same summer KD becomes a free agent, and there will be no salary cap “smoothing” if the NBPA has anything to say about it.
Durant will absolutely be a free agent in the summer of 2016. The 2011 Collective Bargaining Agreement makes it more lucrative for players to decline re-signing with their team in favor of becoming a free agent than inking a new deal. Remember only the team with a player’s Bird Rights can offer a fifth year and higher annual increases, but if they sign an extension some of that money is lost.
KD’s impending free agency is terrifying for Thunder fans. Under Penn’s convoluted thinking, if the Thunder think they’ll lose Durant during his summer of free agency indulgences, perhaps it might make sense to deal him. But that thinking just lends credence to Penn’s assumptions when nothing could be further from the truth.
The Thunder can offer Durant more money than any other team, and since they have his Bird rights and the NBA will be flush with Turner and ABC money, they won’t risk going into luxury tax territory to do so. They still have to be the overwhelming favorites to land him in the summer of 2016.
But Durantula’s hometown Wizards beckon, and if the Thunder fail to get into the playoffs this year — a very real possibility since the Pelicans have a half-game lead for the final playoff spot in the West after last night’s OKC loss to the Clippers — next season might be Durant’s last chance to win a title with the group Presti put around him. That means he might see a better group elsewhere, and flee the only team he’s known to feed fan’s — and player’s — insatiable desire for #Ringz.
Penn and others forget a few things Presti highlights to Mayberry above. Namely, Kevin Durant IS the Oklahoma City Thunder. He was the biggest name when they moved to Oklahoma City following a final lost rookie season in Seattle (#RIPSonics), and what he’s done for the franchise, in partnership with Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka and — briefly — James Harden, cannot be overlooked. Kevin Durant knows this, too. He wants to protect his legacy, and he saw what happened when LeBron so publicly headed south.
The 2014 NBA MVP isn’t going anywhere, this year or next, and it’s ludicrous to suggest otherwise. Maybe he signs somewhere else in the summer of 2016, but that’s a risk the Thunder — with the odds in their favor — will likely take.
One component Penn did get right: despite so much evidence against OKC trading Durant, it still won’t stop reporters from running with empty innuendos to the contrary next season. KD means clicks, attention and money for whichever outlet doesn’t mind muddying the waters with supposition.
