NEWSLETTER
If your favorite NBA front office didn’t spend at least 5 minutes thinking about adding Kevin Durant this summer, then that NBA front office should probably be fired.
A two-time Finals MVP and 12x All-Star, Durant is arguably the best scoring forward of all time. He remains one of those rare talents who can change the entire trajectory of a franchise. So to learn that his old team – the Golden State Warriors – did express interest in a reunion isn’t at all surprising. The fact Stephen Curry was so open to talking about it, however, did catch me off guard.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Curry spoke candidly about Durant’s trade request and fully admitted that the Warriors had talked about the idea of re-adding the superstar into the mix.
As Curry told Rolling Stone on Aug. 9, three days after Durant’s reported ultimatum to the Nets’ ownership: “There was a conversation internally amongst us about ‘If he was available, would you?’ Every team has those conversations, and obviously in our situation, they’re gonna call me and ask me, ‘How do you feel about it?’
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There’s all types of emotion and things that happen to the league. And if anybody’s saying that you wouldn’t entertain that conversation — no disrespect to anybody on our team — but you don’t know how things work. But you also understand, like, if we run this thing back, I’ve got complete confidence in my team that we can win it again, as constructed.
Again, the fact the Warriors put the idea on the whiteboard shouldn’t surprise anyone, but Curry certainly made it sound as if there was some serious brainstorming that took place.
“So, all those things were true. And it started with me wanting to play with KD at the beginning. Yeah, it’s about winning, it’s about having fun, playing the game of basketball. And that was part of the reaction of, like, ‘Yeah, it’d be amazing.’ What does that actually mean?”
Whether or not Durant would have wanted to return to the city he decided to leave a couple of years ago (especially right after they won another championship) is debatable. But what’s not debatable is whether or not the Warriors had the pieces to make a trade work.
Golden State felt like one of the few teams that actually had the asset pool needed to pull off a big-time deal. Between lottery picks like James Wiseman and Jonathan Kuminga, as well as emerging guards like Moses Moodey and Jordan Poole, there is a lot of young talent to like in San Francisco. In fact, for an organization seemingly committed to long-term success, the young talent might be so plentiful that they didn’t necessarily want to dump that for another immediate superstar, especially after just winning another championship without that additional superstar.
Regardless, all we’re talking about now are a bunch of hypotheticals. Durant re-committed to the Brooklyn Nets, and the Warriors are seemingly set to continue another Finals run with their long-time core. Onward.
You can check out Rolling Stones’ full cover story on Curry here:
