It’s an unprecedented time in NBA history at present. The 2016 Free Agency period has provided plenty of earth shaking shocks in the NBA world. Role Players are getting paid crazy money due to the salary cap increase and franchise NBA players are switching cities like it’s the latest trend in fashion. Of all the trades and free agent contracts signed, none have made more of an impact than Kevin Durant taking his talents to Oakland, California to join the Golden State Warriors.
With one of the top 5 players in the NBA signing somewhere other than with their home team, The Good, The Bad & The Ugly of this deal reveals itself. Some NBA purists and former players hate what’s happening in the league and others, for reasons I am yet to fathom, love it, but KD to the Warriors is certainly a game changer. Let’s take a look.
Winners: Golden State Warriors
The Golden State Warriors are the clear cut, number 1 choice for a winner in this deal. Adding Kevin Durant to a team which won 73 games last season and broke the all-time season wins record formerly held by the legendary 95-96 Jordan-led Chicago Bulls team seems almost unfair. Last season the Warriors were the best offensive team in the NBA averaging 114.9 points per game and winning by an average margin of +10.8 points. At times, the freakish play of the Warriors seemed unguardable and now they are throwing in Kevin Durant, a former NBA MVP, 4x NBA Scoring Champion and supreme dynamo to the mix. By adding Durant, Golden State now has 3 NBA MVP titles on their roster; Durant’s 2014 MVP to go with Curry’s 2015 & 16 titles.
How does any team plan to slow Golden State down on the offensive end? I use the word ‘slow’ because there is no way in hell anyone stops them from scoring and shuts Golden State down.
Winner: Kevin Durant
Kevin Durant is another obvious winner in this situation, much to the detriment of many a former NBA player. He joins the winningest team in NBA regular season history and finally rids himself of the ball stopper, Russell Westbrook and teams up with 2x NBA MVP Stephen Curry. He upgrades his roster, swapping Serge Ibaka with Draymond Green and Victor Oladipo with Klay Thompson and creates an unstoppable Big 4 with Curry, Thompson, Durant & Green. The Splash Brothers turns into a 3 headed monster with Durant hitting 3’s with a career average of .380%. With defenses having to play tight when Curry, Thompson and Durant are on the floor and Golden State spacing the floor arguably better than anyone, driving lanes will be plentiful and points in the paint will be exponentially easier to come by.
By moving to Golden State, Durant joins a different type of market and fan base. Not to say that Oklahoma’s market fans are any less praiseworthy that Golden State’s, however, after witnessing the radical rise of Steph Curry and the Warriors over recent years and winning the NBA Championship in 2015, the Warriors fan base has become fanatical (for lack of a better term) and almost radicalized. With the struggles that the San Francisco 49ers are going through and the Oakland Raiders having not yet made the jump from up & coming team, the Golden State Warriors are THE main attraction and are now an international identity, marketing-wise. With his home base now in California, Durant rids himself of the contested everything days. When watching OKC over the past few seasons and particularly in this year’s playoffs, it seemed that every shot Durant was taking was contested. There were no easy buckets for Durant, contested lay ups, contested 3’s and way too many pull-up jump shots with a hand in his face. By having Curry and Thompson on the floor, we can expect Durant to put up career high numbers in field goal % and 3-point % and possibly a season resembling Lebron’s historic 2012-13 (which ended in a championship). Finally, the Warriors provide KD with his best chance at getting that elusive NBA championship. The Warriors won the title in 2015 without KD and were 1 win away from going back-to-back this year.
With the quality that Durant brings to the Warriors, a title is a forgone conclusion (or so Durant hopes).
Loser: Oklahoma City Thunder
Besides the obvious when you lose a player with Kevin Durant’s pedigree: 28.2 points, 8.2 rebounds & 5.0 assists last season, the biggest loss for the Oklahoma City Thunder will be the domino effect that Durant’s defection will have on Russell Westbrook. Arguably the best PG in the NBA, Westbrook is a walking triple double machine (he had 18 last season and broke Magic Johnson’s NBA record 17) an athletic phenomenon. Westbrook who averaged 23.5 points, 10.4 assists, 7.8 rebounds & 2.0 steals last season is in the final year of his contract with OKC. With the big money changes in salary cap this season and next, Westbrook will most likely not resign with the Thunder this season as he can make 10’s of millions more by signing with a team at the end of this upcoming season. Furthermore, Westbrook is now the lone star in Oklahoma and their championship window is now closed for the foreseeable future. This leaves the question;
‘What possible reason does Russell Westbrook have to stay in small market OKC during a rebuilding phase?’
We can presume that the Thunder executives and Sam Presti are thinking the same thing which should mean (if they make a decision based on winning in the future and not now) cashing in their Westbrook chip and trading him for draft picks for a future rebuild. This would mean years of piecing together a roster with young players and waiting for them to develop the same way they did with Westbrook and Durant which in turn means years of losing.
Biggest Loser: The NBA
Short and sweet, the NBA are the biggest losers in the Durant to Golden State sweepstakes. Since superstars joining forces to create super teams became the ‘IN’ thing in the NBA (let’s blame Lebron moving to Miami for this one), Durant joining the Golden State Warriors creates a one team juggernaut with all of the other teams, regardless of conference struggling to compete with their quality. Yes, Lebron and Cleveland won the NBA title this year, but that was during the pre-Durant era.
Can you honestly tell yourself that Cleveland would have come back from 3-1 down in the finals if Kevin Durant was on Golden State?
With Golden State now arguably the greatest team ever assembled there is a lack of parity across the various teams in the NBA. Stars are going to play with other stars which in turn means, teams that are currently bad are going to stay bad.
Now can you tell me that this is a good thing?
A Ray Sandler Piece
Ray_Sandler 