Durant’s lack of greed means NBA’s richest will stay rich
It’s becoming an annual tradition. Around Independence Day, the Golden State Warriors set off fireworks.
A year ago, on July 4, Kevin Durant — a former Most Valuable Player, perennial All-Star and prized free agent — agreed to sign with the Warriors, who two weeks earlier had fallen one game short of winning a second consecutive NBA title.
This year, the Warriors have again made holiday news by keeping all their key players. The latest size-18 sneaker to drop came on Monday, when news broke that Durant has come to terms with the Warriors, agreeing to a two-year deal worth $53 million.
The news isn’t unexpected, but it is the exclamation point on a busy weekend. Two-time league MVP Stephen Curry will sign a $201 million contract — the richest in NBA history. Shaun Livingston and Andre Iguodala — both of whom could have gone elsewhere — agreed to new deals to stay in Oakland. And the deal for NBA Finals MVP Durant — at a significantly lower cost than he could contractually demand — allowed the team to keep its group intact.
The band will be back together.
As with all fireworks,
locally the flurry produces applause and excitement. But from a distance, the explosions can sound downright threatening.
The Warriors, who have won the NBA title two of the past three seasons, have the look of a dynasty. While there will still be questions about the center position and the bench, the backbone of the team that rampaged through the playoffs this spring, winning 16 of 17 postseason games is going to stay intact.
It is a core that is in its prime. Curry is 29. Durant will be 29 in September. Draymond Green, voted the league’s top defensive player, and shooting guard Klay Thompson are 27.
Two other indispensable veterans are signed on for three more years each: Iguodala is 33, and Livingston will be 32 when next season starts.
Whatever holes the rest of the league hoped to poke in the Warriors didn’t materialize. Could a team lure Iguodala away? Could Livingston opt for one last shot at big money? Would the contractual dealings with Curry and Durant get messy? No. No. And no. The team is intact, which means the tremendous chemistry should stay the same. It was a bond that only grew stronger as the season went on. When Durant returned from injury and the full power of the team was unleashed in the playoffs, it was a sight to behold.
No guarantees but …
You can’t count on championships before they’re won. LeBron James and the Miami Heat found that out after predicting, “not one, not two, not three” but multiple championships. They ended up settling for two.
So, here in July 2017, we’re not going to award the Warriors the 2018 or 2019 championship. You don’t know what could happen. But the team clearly will be the favorite to win, next year and in the future.
Durant had 364 assists in the regular season and playoffs combined. But his 365th assist may have been the biggest of all. Because he just created the structure for the Warriors to stay together.
Durant’s new deal — which can’t officially be signed until later this week — reportedly gives him the ability to opt out after the first year. That first year salary is for $25 million. That’s about $9.5 million less than the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement would have allowed him to make and a pay cut from last season. That give-back allowed the team to re-sign Iguodala and Livingston.
USA Today reported Durant was willing to take even less, if Iguodala had left, to allow the Warriors to make room for other players. His reduced deal is also a way of lessening the luxury tax hit that owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber will be taking.
Backlash grows
All this infuriates some fans. The news of Curry’s new five-year deal ignited a social media stream of invective about the absurdity of someone making that much money for shooting a basketball. When James retweeted a post I made on Twitter over the weekend, about the increased value of the Warriors over the past seven years, and added his own thought: “So tell me again why there’s a cap on how much a player can make?” he was hit back with a firestorm of criticism about being greedy.
The NBA is an incredibly wealthy league. The owners keep getting richer, watching their teams’ values escalate. But the players are the stars — without them there is no league, no skyrocketing television ratings, no companies lining up to ink them to endorsement contracts. But some people seem very annoyed that the players get to take part in the capitalist system.
But players, like Durant, also value a good environment, a winning culture and a chemistry with their teammates.
Durant is expected to decline the player option next year and sign his max contract with Golden State. So if you want to see more Warriors fireworks, they’ll probably happen around next Independence Day.
It’s an annual tradition. And the noisy explosions are making the rest of the league jumpy.