The NBA off-season was already shaping up to be a wild one to say the least. Kevin Durant rupturing his Achilles in Game 5 of the NBA Finals only added another wrinkle.
Several rumors have whirled around as to what Durant could do with his pending free agency. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst was on Get Up Thursday morning and brought up an interesting possibility, which has yet to be discussed until now. Windhorst said that there have been discussions in which Golden State would sign Kevin Durant to the five-year $221 million supermax, $57 million more than he could get elsewhere, allow him to rehab, and then proceed to work out a “delayed sign-and-trade” with another team. Windhorst speculated that the New York Knicks could be the team interested in a deal like this.
“So the Durant situation is still in flux,” Windhorst said. “One of the things that is being discussed right now is that the Golden State Warriors would offer Kevin Durant a 5-year contract, $57 million extra that he could get with signing elsewhere, let him rehab, and then work with him to be traded. Potentially to New York, potentially to somewhere else. [It would] Be there way to sort of take care of him monetarily after what he just went through and also protect their franchise to get some assets.”
Just when you thought the Kevin Durant saga couldn’t get more interesting, it did. This move could be beneficial to both sides. If Durant does exercise his player option and opt-out of his current contract with the Warriors, this sign-and-trade deal would allow him to still get the extra $57 million and a fifth year he would lose if he signed with a different team through free agency, while Golden State could receive something in return for the superstar. Due to the nature of Durant’s Achilles injury and the money he can get from the Warriors, it has been speculated by some that he could stay with the team. This sort of trade would let him get that type of money elsewhere. While Warriors fans wouldn’t like to see Durant leave, the best case scenario would be for the team to secure a player or draft picks in return.
As Jalen Rose mentioned on Get Up, a sign-and-trade deal like this would implicate that Kevin Durant is putting all his faith in Golden State to proceed in trading him. Which could be difficult for him to do at the moment. Even with the Anthony Davis trade to the Lakers, this is by far the most captivating rumor this off-season. A delayed sign-and-trade is extremely rare in today’s NBA, but with how the Get Up crew was discussing this possibility, it doesn’t sound like it is out of the picture.