Kevin Durant Rumors
All NBA Players
Position: F
Born: 09/29/88
Height: 6-9 / 2.06
Weight:225 lbs. / 102.1 kg.
Salary:
Born: 09/29/88
Height: 6-9 / 2.06
Weight:225 lbs. / 102.1 kg.
Salary:
But before the free-agency frenzy started two weeks ago, Curry needed to say something to Durant, face to face. There were things Curry wanted to look him in the eye and convey. “I knew full well it was decision time, whatever way he was going to go,” Curry said Saturday during a break in the second round of the American Century Golf Championship celebrity tournament, a delay created by a logjam at the par-5 16th hole at Edgewood Tahoe. “There was no need to pitch. He knows what we’re about and what we accomplished. He just had to make a decision that makes him happy. That’s what everybody wants to do in this league. It was more about a respect factor, not letting the BS of this league get in the way of our relationship, and not let it change who I am or anything like that. I feel like he just knew what he wanted. And at the end of the day, that’s all you can ask for as a player.”
4d
Curry opened up in an extended Q&A session about Durant’s exit with the type of diplomatic answer one would expect from Curry. “The three years that we had were special,” Curry said via The Mercury News. “With KD, we had three straight Finals appearances. We won two of them, and we accomplished a lot as a group. Everybody talks about the amount of talent that we had on our team, but that doesn’t guarantee that you can figure it out on the court, that you can put all the pieces together to be successful. I’m really proud of what we accomplished.
“The beauty of free agency is everybody has a decision, everybody has a choice. You want to find your happiness wherever that is. The beauty of the NBA is everybody has that decision at some point, especially guys that deserve it, like KD and other top free agents. I like to look at what we accomplished and focus on that and be extremely proud of this run that we had. Now we are going to have to recreate it in terms of what it means going forward.”
As a result, there were a series of squeezes put on the Warriors, a position with which they are not at all familiar. First, Durant initially balked at being traded for Russell straight up, multiple sources said. He didn’t think it was a fair deal, and in this case, the Warriors had to not just satisfy the Nets, but also Durant.
The Brooklyn Nets included about $1 million in yearly performance-based incentives in maximum contracts for both Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, a tweak that allowed them to maneuver to fit contracts for DeAndre Jordan and second-round pick Nicolas Claxton into cap space, according to contract data obtained by ESPN.
