Here's a new team to put in the Kevin Durant sweepstakes: the San Antonio Spurs. According to The Vertical's Chris Mannix, executives around the league expect the Spurs to at least explore the possibility of acquiring Durant in the summer:
The coming spike in the salary cap has created a landscape for which nobody prepared. Golden State is considered a realistic option, San Antonio is lurking in the weeds, and it’s widely believed Boston will make its way onto Durant’s radar in the coming months. Indeed, a Bachelor-like courtship is set to commence.
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Oklahoma City has a considerable carrot: The Thunder own Durant’s Bird Rights, giving them the option to exceed the cap. Other teams could sign Durant outright, but they would need to fit Durant’s salary without exceeding the cap, potentially inhibiting a team’s ability to build a contender around him.
Still, so much remains unknown. The lure of playing with Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson has to be appealing, but would Durant really jump to a possible two-time champion, to a team that will never be his? San Antonio has rebuilt its dynasty, but rival executives believe the Spurs will explore ways of adding Durant to the mix, and the franchise’s culture makes it intriguing.
Some thoughts:
1) San Antonio is one of the few teams that won't have much cap space this summer. If Durant wants something close to a max deal, the Spurs would likely have to waive Boris Diaw's partially guaranteed contract and both Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili would have to retire.
2) Last summer, San Antonio signed the best free agent on the market who changed teams. It was a forward who played his college basketball at Texas. Just saying.
3) Seriously, this sounds crazy, right? Obviously, the Spurs are the gold standard when it comes to NBA franchises, but would Durant really leave the Oklahoma City Thunder to go to a rival like this? It seems far-fetched because San Antonio already has a superstar at small forward, and because it just seems unfair. If Duncan does retire, just imagine a frontcourt of Kawhi Leonard, Durant and LaMarcus Aldridge. This is absolutely terrifying.
4) Mannix writes, "a return to Oklahoma City remains the most logical, most reasoned outcome." This may very well be the case, and it feels a bit weird to be speculating so openly about Durant leaving when he's chasing a title with Russell Westbrook. The safe bet is still that he'll stay on a short-term deal, then go through this whole circus again.
