Over the past few months, and even maybe over the past year, Wizards fans and other people around the league have been talking about a potential return from KD to his hometown Washington Wizards. The Wizards have shown they are preparing to make this move through their other roster moves, and have already begun to prepare for KD coming home.
When Under Armour almost agreed to a shoe contract with Durant, it seemed like the icing was on the cake for a move to Washington in the summer of 2016. When Nike came in at the last hour and stole KD back, fans knew it was going to be harder for Durant to decide to take him and his talents to the eastern shore and return to home.
For the Wizards to be able to sign Durant, they are going to have a lot of personnel issues with their current roster. With both John Wall and Marcin Gortat already taking up a lot of cap space, it would seem that signing Durant would give very minimal room to sign other players. The Wizards for sure would not be able to resign Nene, and with their current draft position, it does not appear that the Wizards will be getting a big that will be ready to start.
If the Wizards plan on signing Durant, they are likely either going to have to let Bradley Beal or Otto Porter leave town. Obviously, people are going to say the Wizards should let Otto walk so we can keep Beal, but there is potential that Beal could command a luxurious contract when he becomes a restricted free agent after the 2016 season. With so much turnover as a result of the Wizards signing Durant, the chemistry the team is feeling right now, and hopefully will feel next year, will all go away.
Although the Durant signing is very unlikely, people never know what an athlete might do for the chance to go home and play in front of the hometown fans. Durant will command a max contract, but if playing in DC means that much to him, he may do the improbable and take the hometown discount. We saw how much coming home meant to Lebron James, and will see if it means the same to DC.
