Trade Russell Westbrook? Just because Kevin Durant up and left for the Golden State Warriors? Puh-lease. The Oklahoma City Thunder have bigger plans, as evidenced by their decision to rescind Dion Waiters’ qualifying offer.
They want to renegotiate Westbrook’s now, ahead of 2017 free agency, locking him up long term so that they don’t have to go through these Kevin Durant motions all over again.
From The Vertical’s Adrian Wojnarowski:
The Oklahoma City Thunder rescinded the qualifying offer to guard Dion Waiters on Monday, making him an unrestricted free agent, league sources told The Vertical.
The move protects salary cap space for the Thunder’s primary offseason objective, league sources said: persuading five-time All-Star guard Russell Westbrook to renegotiate his contract, which would eliminate his 2017 free agency.
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For Westbrook, the most likely scenario for a renegotiation would be to use the Thunder’s cap space to guarantee he will stay under contract with the Thunder through the 2017-18 season. This would give Oklahoma City the chance to recruit one of its top targets – 2017 free agent and Oklahoma native Blake Griffin of the Los Angeles Clippers – to partner with Westbrook, league sources said.
Westbrook and his agent, Thad Foucher of Wasserman Media Group, have been in regular contact with Thunder general manager Sam Presti since Kevin Durant’s departure on July 4, but Westbrook has yet to make a commitment to renegotiate his contract and forgo free agency in 2017, league sources said.
The upside for the Thunder here is obvious. They get to keep Westbrook long term if he’s open to this move; if he isn’t, they at least have the type of closure that will allow them to shop him on the trade market without any regrets.
For Westbrook, a renegotiation makes sense if he’s looking for an immediate raise that takes effect in 2016-17. He will probably be able to explore free agency again around 2019 or 2020, at the end of his prime, and he won’t have to endure the same media scrutiny Durant lived through for an entire year. He also gets to skirt the serial list of trade rumors that are already being thrown out in the NBA universe.
But will Westbrook actually be open to a renegotiation? It’s not clear. He has yet to indicate he wants to leave, according to The Oklahoman‘s Anthony Slater, which is a good thing. But he hasn’t definitively exhibited a desire to make a long-term commitment, something the Thunder need to see soon, lest they have to explore trading him.
