Not so fast, NBA superstar vultures. Kevin Durant is off limits.
Apparently.
With Durant streaking toward free agency in 2016, former Portland Trail Blazers vice president Tom Penn, now an ESPN NBA analyst, threw out the idea that Oklahoma City Thunder general manager Sam Presti would deal his prized superstar rather than lose him for nothing after next season.
Quite predictably, Presti himself isn’t boarding that train.
From The Oklahoman‘s Darnell Mayberry:
I asked GM Sam Presti in passing his thoughts on the idea the team would trade Kevin Durant. Here's what he told me: pic.twitter.com/NRMRySUnLJ
— Darnell Mayberry (@DarnellMayberry) March 12, 2015
No one’s saying the idea isn’t crazy to a degree. Durant is one of the league’s top-three players, a transcendent talent who is the difference between juggernaut status and where the Thunder are now. You don’t trade those players. You just don’t.
Unless you have to.
Presti has refuted similar notions in the past. Jeff Green, Reggie Jackson and James Harden were all supposed to be long-term centerpieces, even as they neared restricted free agency. But each of them was traded after Presti tried to keep them and/or publicly spoke about the team’s plan to include them in its future.
Durant’s situation is obviously different. Much different. He’s tracking toward unrestricted free agency and, well, he’s better than any of those guys, even Harden. He’s more important because of the extended time he has spent in Oklahoma City, and because of what he’s accomplished on the floor before reaching this point. Harden wasn’t an MVP candidate when the the Thunder traded him. Those don’t grow on trees. And when healthy, that’s just what Durant is.
Still, capitalizing on superstar departures is all the rage—requisite rage. It’s smarter to get something in return for a player’s exit rather than lose him for nothing.
Certain players you roll the dice on. That’s not even up for debate. No one’s chastising the Miami Heat for not dealing LeBron James last season. Durant and his situation are of similar ilk.
At the same time, the Heat were gunning for a three-peat. There was no predicting LeBron’s departure before the end of last season. Indeed, the Heat already won titles, so on some level, they probably thought they were safeguarded against his departure. But the Thunder haven’t won a title with Durant, and if there’s any indication that he’ll leave after next season, the team has one of two options: Try to win a title so he’ll stay, or trade him for whatever they can get.
If the proposed packages are awful, then the decision’s made. But if the Thunder have multiple first-rounders, solid prospects and immediate-impact players on the line, and if they’re sensing Durant’s time in Oklahoma City is drawing to a close, they have to at least consider it, even if they don’t do anything in the end.
And merely entertaining the idea, no matter how valuable Durant may be, is far from ludicrous.
