Jared Dudley on Kevin Durant signing with Washington: ‘I don’t see it’
Just about everyone associated with the NBA – from its owners, front office staff, coaches, media and (most importantly) players on down – has an opinion as to what team Kevin Durant will sign with in July.
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The Oklahoma City Thunder superstar and 2014 NBA MVP is a free agent, a rather highly-coveted one, and while you have to respect the voices of all in the league that offer their suggestions and/or predictions as to where Durant is headed, some tend to deserve more perked ears than others.
Jared Dudley’s guess, for a start, would be one of them. Not just because he’s one of the NBA’s more respected players and voices, but also because he is still under contract with the Washington Wizards – the team that for years was expected to make the most effective push to bring the Washington D.C.-born Durant back home.
Via Pro Basketball Talk, here’s Dan Steinberg’s documentation of a conversation Dudley had with Kevin Sheehan on ESPN 980, one that leads with Sheehan asking if he thinks Kevin Durant will become a Washington Wizard this summer:
“I realistically don’t,” Dudley said. “I hope for the fans they do, because he’s from there, and he would bring such excitement. They’d be right behind Cleveland, right there with them to be able to contend. I don’t see it though.”
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“It’s the system the NBA built,” he said. “In general, no star player’s leaving to go to another team. … The system’s built for these guys to stay. Guys like Kevin Durant, Al Horford: The Wizards most likely will be going after these players, as they should. Are they really going to leave that money on the table?”
So, this isn’t really a diss on the Washington Wizards, right? It wasn’t a shot at the team that was expected by some to give the Cleveland Cavaliers a challenge in 2015-16 as LeBron and Co. defended its Eastern Conference title, prior to disappointing and turning in a fitful 41-41 record. Prior to missing the playoffs and costing coach Randy Wittman his job.
General manager Ernie Grunfeld still has his job with the franchise, and he’ll be charged with luring During to D.C. He’ll have plenty of cap space – Nene is coming off the books in July, John Wall is under a very reasonable contract – and the understanding that he can offer Durant just about a maximum contract either before or after committing to a max deal (whether he should or not) for oft-injured shooting guard Bradley Beal.
He also has newly-hired ex-Oklahoma City Thunder coach Scott Brooks in place as Randy Wittman’s replacement. Brooks’ reputation is so fluid that we’re still not entirely sure if his presence with entice Durant or dissuade him from switching sides.
As Jared Dudley pointed out, though, the NBA’s maximum contract payroll structure should be enough to convince Kevin Durant to want to stay with Oklahoma City, even if the Thunder were a 40-win team coached by a cloth cap filled with frozen peas.
If Kevin Durant was only focused on the money, signing a two-year deal with a player option for 2017-18 (one he would opt-out of to sign a new deal with an enhanced salary cap in 2017) with OKC over a three-year deal with the same option with another team would fit him with nearly $55 million more in total earnings between now and 2022. Even if Durant took the Kevin Love-route and committed to a full max, with LeBron James-styled opt-outs for 2017, he’d still take in far, far more money by sticking with the Thunder.
This is what the NBA wanted to achieve when it introduced the idea of (Larry) Bird Rights in 1984, while intensifying the motivation for superstars to re-sign with their incumbent team (while doing the same with financial penalties for leaving for greener pastures) in the 1999, 2005, and 2011 league collective bargaining agreements.
This results in a lot of superstars staying home, but it also can result in stars or even pseudo-stars chasing the money in order to play for organizations that are lacking – a not unreasonable move for players looking at the bottom line.
In Kevin Durant’s case, however, any choice to stay with Oklahoma City would not act as an example of such. And not just because Durant is a bonafide, without-question superstar.
The Thunder’s Western Conference finals loss to Golden State was disappointing, as the squad’s ohfer three finish to the season reminded of the dizzying amount of late game breakdowns that plagued the team all season. The franchise, finally healthy, did well to give a 73-win team all it could handle, but you get the feeling a back and forth battle prior to a Game 7 loss would be preferable to going up 3-1 in a series before frittering away a chance at a return to the NBA Finals with three straight losses.
With that in place, though the Thunder is set to pay a hefty bill no matter the machinations, OKC would be an ideal spot for Kevin Durant to land even if he hadn’t spent the last eight years of his life working out of OKC. This is a versatile, promising roster that no other suitor (outside of the Golden State team that ended its season, barely) can compete with.
That’s just on a basketball level. On a financial level, well, we’ll refer you to Jared Dudley’s words up above.
In the interview, Dudley pointed out that he’d enjoy returning to the Washington Wizards when he becomes a free agent on July 1 – the same day as Durant. We’re not entirely sure how keen the Wizards will be in bringing the talented hybrid forward back, considering he spoke truth to power about what Washington fans have sadly come to realize in the days since the team’s 2015-16 season started to unravel.
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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops
