Three cheers for consolation prizes!
The Los Angeles Clippers were one of a handful of NBA teams that landed a face-to-face meeting with Kevin Durant in free agency—one of five others, to be exact: Boston Celtics, Golden State Warriors, Miami Heat, Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs. And while they ultimately left the contest empty-handed, they can take solace in knowing that they were among Durant’s top three choices, apparently.
Here’s what Clippers head coach Doc Rivers told Adrian Wojnarowski on The Vertical Podcast, per RealGM:
“We were willing to take the gamble if we felt we were in it. And we were in it. We were in the top-3 at the very end,” said Rivers. “But we had to make a couple calls to (Durant’s camp). We got two players to delay an hour (before making their decisions). We had two players on our team who could sign for more money but they were going to wait another hour to stay with us.
“The second thing is we had to get this right. If we’re going to go after Durant, if we can get him, let’s stay in it. It’s worth it, even if we don’t get him. If we’re not going to get him, we have to make that decision. We have to do our job business wise.”
…
“We asked a simple question. We sat around trying to figure out what’s the right question. And the first question we asked is ‘are we in the top-3?’ and they said ‘yes’,” said Rivers. “That made us feel good. We talked about it. My next question is ‘are we in the top-2?’ We made the decision, if they say ‘no’ then we go. If they say ‘yes’ we stay. They said ‘no’.”
This might be more of a consolation prize to the Thunder. Or maybe not.
If the Clippers weren’t in the top two, then that had to mean Durant was deciding between Oklahoma City and Golden State…right? The Heat were almost certainly out of it, and you get the feeling Durant never too seriously considered joining the Spurs. That leaves the Celtics and the Thunder. And while good things were said after the Celtics’ pitch, it’s tough to imagine that Durant had made up his mind to leave Oklahoma City and was, in turn, picking between three other squads in the Clippers, Warriors and Celtics.
Alas, we may never know. What’s almost certain, though, is that we haven’t heard the last anecdote from KD’s free-agency jaunt. It’s nearly one month later and details are still trickling out in drips and drabs.
That’s the NBA for ya. It has turned into a year-round league, and free-agency happenings, along with the subsequent tales of those free-agency happenings, are a big part of the reason why.
