Kevin Durant made a huge decision last year when he chose to sign with the Warriors, and he said Thursday on the Warriors Plus/Minus podcast, “I’m not going through that again.”
The All-Star forward doesn’t plan on leaving the team he just joined, even though he’ll likely opt out of his contract and become a free agent this year. Considering all of the contracts and star players at Golden State, Durant won’t be able to get a max deal, so he’ll have to take a pay cut if he wants to stay.
“Obviously I’m thinking about the playoffs right now, so I haven’t thought about it that much. But I don’t plan on going anywhere else. Obviously you want to keep this group together. We want to see how far we can go with this thing, but I’m sure once the season is over with, we’ll figure that stuff out, everybody. I’m sure it will all work out for the best.”
Durant says he doesn’t want to go through the headache of having teams host him and making a decision that will anger many. And though he wants to see the Warriors group stick together and win multiple titles, he realizes it’s not quite that simple.
Stephen Curry will also become an unrestricted free agent this offseason, so the Warriors will need to create cap space to keep him and Durant. The problem, though, is if they do that, then they could lose Shaun Livingston and Andre Iguodala, who are both set to hit free agency as well.
While Livingston and Iguodala aren’t starters, they are key bench players who have played a huge role in the team’s success over these last few seasons.
Golden State still has a few more months to make these decisions, and the focus right now is winning this year.
