Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder are in the middle of what should be a very interesting 2016 Western Conference semi-finals series against Kawhi Leonard and the San Antonio Spurs. After the Spurs blew out the Thunder in game 1, OKC came back and stole a win from the Spurs in San Antonio in dramatic fashion. This series should go the distance because both teams are fantastic but it also appears they might be battling for something other than advancing in the playoffs.
Kevin Durant is clearly the most coveted free agent-to-be in the 2016 free agency class and it’s not even close. There are other guys like Mike Conley, Al Horford and even Nicolas Batum that are getting a lot of interest but KD is in a different class of his own.
Durant has been non-committal in his plans for the future and it has forced many people to speculate about where he will go. Many think he will stick around with OKC, the Washington Wizards have the allure of KD coming home, the Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets want to bring the big star to the big city, the Boston Celtics feel they’re one top tier player away from a title and even the Golden State Warriors have a peaked interest but there is another dark horse team lurking in the shadows.
The San Antonio Spurs have been rumored to covet Durant’s services and there’s yet another report of the Spurs interest in Kevin Durant.
Following from Marc Stein of ESPN.
The stately Spurs, league sources say, are just as intrigued as Golden State by the thought of making a run at Durant come July 1.
The Spurs, though, are said to have harbored similar fantasies for months in their famously stealthy manner. As with Golden State, San Antonio won’t have close to max cap room to spend without a willingness to lose multiple members from its Boris Diaw/Danny Green/Patty Mills supporting cast. Yet you’ll recall how swiftly the Spurs jettisoned Tiago Splitter last summer when the opportunity arose to sign LaMarcus Aldridge.
The sure thing, at this stage, is that the Spurs — like the Warriors — are primed for the chase. Like Pat Riley and the Miami Heat last summer with Aldridge, San Antonio wants to book the face-to-face chance to pitch Durant in early July 1 … and then worry about where the cap space comes from.
It would be premature to suggest that any team apart from the Thunder is in the Durant lead at the minute. Nor is anyone claiming that the Warriors and Spurs are the only two threats to OKC.
All signs continue to point to Washington, Miami, Boston, Houston, New York and naturally both of the L.A. teams doing everything they can to romance Durant as if he were coming out of Montrose Christian School in Maryland all over again.
And if you think it would somehow scare them to try to find room in the same offense for Durant, Leonard and the increasingly dominant Aldridge …
Don’t bother.
As one rival GM half-jokingly told me this week, immediately haunted by picturing what those three could be capable of in the midst of the NBA’s small ball revolution: “Because they’d win every game.”
