- Although there’s no indication yet that the Thunder are exploring a Russell Westbrook trade, rival general managers think GM Sam Presti will do so sooner rather than later if he suspects that Westbrook is leaning toward leaving as a free agent next summer, says Howard Beck of Bleacher Report (video link). According to Beck, many of those rival GMs believe that the Celtics are the most likely landing spot for Westbrook if Oklahoma City does pursue a trade.
Free agent shooting guard Dion Waiters may be the next target for the Nets, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical. Brooklyn is looking at other options after the Trail Blazers matched a $75MM offer sheet today for Allen Crabbe and the Heat did the same with a $50MM offer to Tyler Johnson.
The 6’4″ Waiters is a restricted free agent just like Crabbe and Johnson, so Oklahoma City would have the chance to match any offer. Waiters, who has spent a season and a half with the Thunder, averaged 9.8 points in 78 games this season.
Wojnarowski stresses that the Nets haven’t made a decision on Waiters, but they have been considering him as a backup plan and will discuss a formal offer this week. Brooklyn has about $36MM in cap room remaining.
There has been some speculation that the Thunder may look to trade Russell Westbrook in the wake of Kevin Durant‘s departure, but during an appearance on “The Herd with Colin Cowherd,” Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical noted that there remains a very good chance the star will continue his career in OKC (h/t Erik Horne of The Oklahoman). “Right now, his mindset in on the team they have and can we add pieces in the short term, can we go out in free agency,” Wojnarowski said. “That doesn’t mean he’s not leaving next year, but his attitude isn’t ‘aww man, Kevin left. I’m screwed, I need to get out of here.’”
“He’s been … I’ve been told Russell’s been very determined to lead the team they have, and I know that Russell really likes the town. He loves bringing in Victor Oladipo … Steven Adams. Those are his guys,” Wojnarowski continued. “He thinks they’re a real talented team that if they can add another significant piece it puts them right back in contention. I think he’s embracing this, and he can go out next summer and get a $200MM dollar extension with Oklahoma City.”
Here’s more from out West:
- Interest in Mavericks unrestricted free agent Raymond Felton has picked up in recent days, with five teams circling the point guard, Chris Haynes of The Northeast Ohio Media Group tweets. The 32-year-old made 80 appearances for Dallas in 2015/16, averaging 9.5 points, 3.2 rebounds and 3.6 assists in 27.4 minutes per outing.
- Pelicans head coach Alvin Gentry noted that the team is seeking more than just talent when exploring the free agent market this summer, Justin Verrier of ESPN.com relays (ESPN Now link). “We were gonna add high-character guys,” Gentry said. “I think that’s where the league is going now. If you look around most of the teams they’ve got interchangeable parts, but they’ve got guys that are all about the team. They’re trying to figure out what makes the team better. I think for us, you talk about Anthony Davis and Jrue Holiday, and adding these two kids and some of the other guys that we signed, I like the makeup of our team. What we have to do is see how it all meshes together.“
Thunder big man Mitch McGary has been suspended for five games by the NBA for a failed drug test, writes Anthony Slater of The Oklahoman. McGary figures to serve the suspension to open the 2016/17 regular season.
As Slater writes, the five-game ban isn’t a major on-court problem for the Thunder, considering McGary wasn’t a regular part of the team’s rotation last season. However, it’s not the first off-court incident for the 24-year-old, who tested positive for marijuana in college and avoided a one-year NCAA suspension by entering the NBA draft. So that may be cause for some concern.
McGary, the 21st overall pick in the 2014 draft, has shown a little promise and had a strong Summer League showing this past week in Orlando, but he has yet to make a real mark in Oklahoma City. During the 2015/16 campaign, he averaged just 3.6 minutes in 20 appearances, scoring total 26 points for the season.
- We’ll be updating our full list of traded player exceptions soon, once all of the recently-reported trades become official, but we can expect many of the TPEs on that list to disappear. As Bobby Marks of The Vertical tweets, the Cavaliers, Thunder, and Clippers may end up being the only teams with trade exceptions when the dust settles.
JULY 7TH: The signing is official, the team announced.
JULY 4TH: After nine years with the franchise, Kevin Durant has decided to leave the Thunder and will join the Warriors. Durant formally announced his decision on Monday morning in a post on The Players’ Tribune. Per ESPN’s Marc Stein (via Twitter), the deal will be a two-year pact worth about $54.3MM, with a player option for that second year.
“The primary mandate I had for myself in making this decision was to have it based on the potential for my growth as a player — as that has always steered me in the right direction,” Durant wrote. “But I am also at a point in my life where it is of equal importance to find an opportunity that encourages my evolution as a man: moving out of my comfort zone to a new city and community which offers the greatest potential for my contribution and personal growth. With this in mind, I have decided that I am going to join the Golden State Warriors.
“It really pains me to know that I will disappoint so many people with this choice, but I believe I am doing what I feel is the right thing at this point in my life and my playing career,” Durant added.
Although the team wasn’t formally allowed to speak to him until this past Friday, the Warriors’ pursuit of Durant has been ongoing for months, with Golden State players remaining in contact with him, as Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical tweets.
Wojnarowski adds that the Warriors sold Durant on the opportunity to win multiple titles together, and to ease Stephen Curry‘s workload. Durant will join a stacked Golden State roster that will feature not just Curry, but Klay Thompson and Draymond Green as well, creating an incredibly imposing “big four” — all four players earned spots on one of the 2016 All-NBA teams earlier this year.
[RELATED: Updated Warriors’ depth chart at RosterResource.com]
With Durant on the way, the Warriors will need to clear the cap space necessary to sign him to his new contract. The most logical roster move for Golden State looks like a trade of center Andrew Bogut, who is set to earn $12,681,081 in 2016/17. According to Sam Amick of USA Today (via Twitter), at least three teams have expressed interest in acquiring Bogut.
Meanwhile, restricted free agent Harrison Barnes will also be headed elsewhere as a result of the Durant acquisition. The Mavericks are expected to offer Barnes a max deal when the July moratorium ends on Thursday, so Dallas could very well be his next destination. The Warriors may rescind Barnes’ cap hold, allowing him to sign with the Mavs as an unrestricted free agent — per Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated (Twitter link), the team is doing just that with Festus Ezeli‘s QO, which will make him a UFA.
Once the Dubs officially get Durant under contract, the team will likely just have the room exception – worth about $3MM – and the minimum-salary exception to fill out its roster. Given the free-agent prices we’ve seen so far this week, that money may not go far, but it’s also entirely possible that veterans seeking a title will want to join the Warriors’ stacked squad and will be willing to take a pay cut to do so.
As for the teams that failed to land Durant, the Thunder are obviously the most interesting case. With Russell Westbrook a year from free agency himself, Oklahoma City may have to seriously consider the possibility of exploring the trade market for Westbrook, rather than risking having him leave for nothing. However, now that they won’t be paying Durant $26MM+ in 2016/17, the Thunder have a little flexibility to try to go out and fortify the roster with another free agent addition, so GM Sam Presti will have some difficult decisions to make.
The Heat, meanwhile, now have the opportunity to mend fences with Dwyane Wade since the team won’t need a huge chunk of cap space for Durant. The Spurs will likely move on to other free agent pursuits — they’re currently considered a frontrunner for Pau Gasol. The Celtics were at least able to add a top-five free agent over the weekend by reaching an agreement with Al Horford, so they’ve improved their roster this week and still have cap room and assets to make additional moves. As for the Clippers, they were informed earlier in the process that they were out of the running for Durant, and have already begun reaching deals with their own free agents, including Jamal Crawford and Austin Rivers.
With Durant eligible for an increased maximum salary a year from now, and Curry’s contract also set to expire next summer, the Warriors are on track to finalize a pair of massive contracts in 2017, assuming Durant does indeed sign a long-term deal with the team at that point.
Because Golden State will only have Durant’s Non-Bird rights in 2017, the club will have to make sure it has enough cap room to fit the former MVP’s new max salary (approximately $35MM) next summer, unless he’s willing to take a much more modest raise. For now, keeping that cap room available doesn’t look like it should be a problem for the Warriors, who only have two guaranteed salaries – Thompson’s and Green’s – on the books for 2017/18
With Durant’s decision now official, the rumor mill for the free agent market figures to come back to life — there had been little free-agent news this morning, as the league waited for the star forward to announce his destination.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
The Timberwolves offered veteran small forward Luol Deng a three-year contract at $12MM per season, according to Darren Wolfson of KSTP Radio (Twitter link). Head coach and president of basketball operations Tim Thobideau refused to fully guarantee the third year, Wolfson adds. In the end, the Timberwolves didn’t come close to signing Deng, as the former Heat starter agreed to a four-year, $72MM contract with the Lakers.
In other news regarding free agency:
- The Wizards have interest in re-signing shooting guard Alan Anderson and will meet with him this weekend, league sources told J. Michael of CSNmidlatlantic.com (Twitter links). The meeting is expected to take place in Las Vegas, Michael adds. Anderson, who made $4MM last season, appeared in just 13 games with the Wizards after undergoing a second surgery on his left ankle. The previous season, he played in 74 games with the Nets and averaged 7.4 points in 23.6 minutes.
- Shooting guard Brandon Paul is drawing major interest around the league after some strong performances for the Hornets’ summer-league team, Sportando tweets. He’s averaging 15.3 points and 7.3 rebounds through four games in the Orlando Summer League. The 6’4” Paul went undrafted in 2013 out of the University of Illinois and has been playing for a Spanish league team, FIATC Joventut.
- Forward Anthony Randolph will remain in Europe and sign a one-year deal with Spain’s Real Madrid, a source told Marc J. Spears of ESPN.com (Twitter links). Randolph received interest from the Mavericks this summer, Spears adds. The contract will be the $1.5MM-$2MM range, international journalist David Pick tweets. The 6’11” Randolph hasn’t played in the NBA since the 2013/14 season, when he appeared in 43 games with the Nuggets.
- Power forward Willie Reed has drawn interest from the Warriors, Spurs, Heat, Thunder, Timberwolves and Pacers, Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders tweets. Reed, an unrestricted free agent, averaged 4.7 points and 3.1 rebounds in 10.9 minutes over 39 games with the Nets last season.
- Free agent center Robert Sacre, who played the last four seasons with the Lakers, has drawn interest from the Timberwolves and Rockets, Wolfson reports in a separate tweet.
A contributing factor that led to Kevin Durant leaving OKC to join the Warriors was his frustration with the Thunder‘s offense and guard Russell Westbrook‘s tendency to dominate the ball, a source close to the “Slim Reaper” told Howard Beck of Bleacher Report. “Ultimately, he got frustrated and felt that they had plateaued,” the source told Beck. “[Coach Billy Donovan] came in, and he still had the same issues that he had with Russ under Scotty [former coach Scott Brooks]. The offense didn’t change much. He still had to take a ton of contested shots every game; and that’s when he had the ball at all. He’s never going to have a game in Golden State where Steve Kerr has to say at halftime, ‘You guys need to get Kevin the ball,’ which happened in OKC.”
Kevin Durant dominated Fourth of July headlines this year, announcing on Monday that he has decided to sign with the Warriors later this week, rather than returning to the Thunder or heading to the Celtics, Heat, or Spurs. Many of the rest of Monday’s NBA headlines were directly correlated to Durant’s decision: Harrison Barnes and Andrew Bogut are both headed to the Mavericks, the Thunder may field trade offers for Russell Westbrook, the Spurs moved onto Plan B and locked up Pau Gasol, and Zaza Pachulia agreed to a deal far below his market value to join the Warriors.
In addition to those stories, we have a few more reactions and leftovers related to Durant’s signing, so let’s dive in and round up those items, sorted by KD’s new team and old team…
Warriors:
- In the wake of Durant’s decision, the Warriors were linked to several free agent bigs, with Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders reporting (via Twitter) that the team was eyeing Willie Reed and Dewayne Dedmon, while Marcus Thompson of The Bay Area News Group tweeted that Jermaine O’Neal is “game for a return” to Golden State. It was Tim Kawakami of The San Jose Mercury News that noted (via Twitter) the team’s interest in Pachulia, and it’s not clear whether or not that agreement will diminish the Dubs’ interest in those other low-cost bigs.
- A number of free agents have expressed interest in joining the Warriors on veteran-minimum contracts to help fill out the roster, according to Kennedy (via Twitter).
- In a piece for Sports Illustrated, Kennedy spoke to Draymond Green about the recruitment process for the Warriors and Durant. Meanwhile, Ethan Sherwood Strauss of ESPN.com reports that Andre Iguodala gave an “incredible pitch” during Golden State’s meeting with Durant last Friday.
- Sam Amick of USA Today goes a little more in-depth on how the Warriors landed Durant, providing some interesting details on Jerry West‘s involvement and how the Warriors’ two-hour meeting with Durant played out.
- As Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated outlines, the Warriors were able to sell Durant on their unselfishness, “no-stars” culture, and their potential to win multiple titles together.
Thunder:
- Thunder owner Clay Bennett and GM Sam Presti both issued statements on Durant’s departure, and they were far more measured than the infamous comic-sans statement Dan Gilbert put out when LeBron James left Cleveland. “Kevin made an indelible mark on the Thunder organization and the state of Oklahoma as a founding father of this franchise,” Presti said. “We can’t adequately articulate what he meant to the foundation of this franchise and our success. While clearly disappointing that he has chosen to move on, the core values that he helped establish only lead to us thanking him for the many tangible and intangible ways that he helped our program.”
- Marcus Thompson (Twitter link) has heard chatter suggesting that it’s uncertain that Westbrook would have chosen to remain with the Thunder long-term even if Durant has stayed, which the Bay Area News Group columnist suggests may have played a role in KD’s decision.
- Royce Young of ESPN.com, however, suggests that the Thunder aren’t as worried about Westbrook leaving Oklahoma City as they were about Durant heading elsewhere, with one team source suggesting to Young that Durant’s departure may make Westbrook more compelled to stay in OKC. Of course, a lot can change between now and July 1, 2017, but Young writes that the Thunder will try to sell Westbrook on the fact that it’s his team now.
- Sources tell Young that the Thunder may take some time before making any significant roster decisions. Given how fast free agency moves, that might mean just taking a few days to think things through — it may not be long before the club has to decide on whether or not to match an offer sheet for Dion Waiters, for instance.
- In his aforementioned story for USA Today, Sam Amick notes that the Thunder believe they would have had a very good chance to sign Al Horford if Durant had returned, which makes KD’s departure an even more bitter pill to swallow.
- Also at USA Today, Amick conducted a Q&A with Presti focusing on Durant’s departure.
The Thunder may begin fielding offers for All-Star point guard Russell Westbrook in the wake of Kevin Durant‘s decision to bolt to the Warriors, according to Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com.
Oklahoma City is considering a renegotiation and extension of Westbrook’s current contract, which has one year remaining, sources told Windhorst. However, a league source informed David Aldridge of NBA.com that Westbrook, who can become an unrestricted free agent next summer, has no interest in doing that.
Thus, several league executives have opined to Windhorst that the Thunder will consider testing the market for Westbrook, who will make $17.77MM next season. The Thunder will take some time before making any roster decisions, Windhorst adds. If they gamble that they can re-sign Westbrook next summer, they may wind up losing both of their superstars without any compensation.
GM Sam Presti told Royce Young of ESPN.com and other members of the media during a press conference on Monday that Westbrook would embrace the challenge of playing without Durant.
“He’s a true leader that takes it on. And I think he’ll take this on as well,” Presti said.
With the rising salary cap, there is no real incentive for a max-level player like Westbrook to sign an extension, since he can easily make more money as an unrestricted free agent. Oklahoma City will have plenty of cap space next summer, as only Enes Kanter and Kyle Singler have guaranteed deals beyond next season.