Kevin Durant has the entire NBA wrapped around his finger. The Undefeated scooped the latest of what will become gobs of leaked details about the league’s most marquee free agent since LeBron in 2010.
Warriors' meeting with Thunder free agent Kevin Durant is Friday afternoon in The Hamptons, source told The… https://t.co/DjX0xLD5Jq
— Marc J. Spears (@MarcJSpearsESPN) June 29, 2016
Teams are going to be paralyzed in free agency until Durant makes his decision and Golden State will get one of the first cracks at making their case.
We wrote about the Warriors’ recruiting pitch earlier this week and argued Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green should be present alongside Bob Myers and Steve Kerr. It’s unclear how many representatives Durant will bring with him to The Hamptons (let’s hope their aren’t Nike representatives present who spurned Curry), but Golden State’s method of persuasion should be conveyed simply: We’ve won a championship before. We know what it takes to hoist a Larry O’Brien trophy. We need your help to take LeBron for another epic chapter in NBA history.
X’s and O’s are going to be lightly discussed, but this meeting will be more about the energy. Durant wants to vibe with Kerr and Myers; the GM and coach should want to show off the collaborative atmosphere they’ve created by having their star players involved in the recruiting process. The atmosphere should be relaxed and simple. Even though Kerr has done this before with Marv Albert narrating, don’t make any cheesy videos like the Grizzlies did begging Mike Conley to stay.
It’s funny how the NBA’s free agency process has become like recruiting a football star out of high school. Someone leaked Durant’s list of preferred destinations (Thunder, Warriors, Spurs, Clippers, Celtics and Heat). Other franchises have leaked information to reporters that they are desperate to even get noticed by Durant, and will do anything to hold a meeting. The Knicks, the Wizards and now apparently the Hawks fall in that boat.
Even more than LeBron’s decision in 2010, Durant has managed to captivate our attention off the court in an unprecedented fashion. A week after one of the greatest championship series’ in the history of the sport, Durant’s impending decision satisfies basketball fans’ insatiable itch for drama almost as much as LeBron’s once in a lifetime performance. Whether it’s Draymond’s kicking, LeBron feuding with Kevin Love, Ayesha Curry’s tweets — this is a league that thrives off of sophomoric storylines more than any other sport. The NBA is built upon gossip and we hang onto every thread of it. Durant’s free agency is exceeding the hype.
The more information put out there, the more media members and fans try and put together the clues to the puzzle. How could he not leave Oklahoma City hearing all of these elaborate plans for him in bigger cities? Soaking in his future with The Hamptons in the background is a little detail that fuels this narrative he’s open to hearing out pitches and could be considering brighter pastures in a bigger city. This little report from the plugged in Spears is feeding into the machine and we love it. The fact that we all care so much about when and where Durant and the Warriors are meeting shows how damn gripping the NBA has been this decade. This sport is thriving like it’s the 80s.
Until Durant finally makes his decision, this won’t be the last article about every little morsel of information surrounding where he’ll play basketball. And if Golden State somehow does lure Durant away from the Thunder, the national attention from the 73-win season will be an appetizer of what’s to come. A Kevin Durant and Steph Curry pairing would send the NBA world into an unknowingly state of obsession — both for and against the move.
LeBron is still King James and delivered a ring to Cleveland. Durant is captivating Prince KD, and until he makes his decision, he’ll leave everybody in the NBA on pins and needles.