When people realised that it was financially possible for the Golden State Warriors to get Kevin Durant, NBA2K fans salivated over the prospect.
In reality, there were still a contingent salivating but we have to take note that the Warriors would have to strip their bench to the bone to get KD.
Even though it’s possible, is there any point in risking the one of the greatest NBA teams ever assembled to get one of the greatest starting 5’s in NBA History? Some people in Warriors’ circles aren’t feeling it.
Most of the two-dozen or so team executives I polled over the past two weeks on the Durant-Warriors possibility described it as a no-brainer (“Bench smench,” texted one GM), but there is some division within the Warriors, and you can understand why. They might have the best basketball team ever assembled! How can you shake that up? They are obliterating victims by about 13 points per 100 possessions. Unless the league adds a 4-point shot or lengthens the game, it is almost literally impossible to get any better. And the Warriors have already been proven right choosing continuity over a sweet-shooting shiny object in Kevin Love.
Signing Durant would carry risk, especially with Festus Ezeli‘s future unclear after another knee surgery. Signing Durant with cap room would cost Golden State Harrison Barnes, and at least two of Andre Iguodala, Shaun Livingston, Andrew Bogut and Ezeli. The Warriors would have to offload two of those guys into someone else’s cap space, and they are privately worried they might have to attach one or even two future first-round picks to grease the wheels.
Of course executives would say no-brainer. But they don’t have a team like the Warriors, a nearly unstoppable machine.
Why risk going from rock to a hard place? Sure you might have a chance to have an even better season than the one you have now but there’s more chance of risk in my opinion.
And who’s to say that Kevin Durant would even want to go there? I mean if he wants a ring he’d have a better chance in Golden State but he would most likely have to stop being the offensive beast we know him and love him for.
