When NBA free agency begins Friday at 12:01 a.m. ET, it will mark the beginning of a mad dash for unrestricted free agent Kevin Durant. At 27 years old with seven All-Star appearances and a league MVP under his belt, Durant has the power to transform whatever team he lands on into a championship favorite.
Which is why Durant will leave the NBA’s other 29 teams disappointed when he re-signs with the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Sure, Durant will hear plenty of enticing offers from other teams — the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs have the talent, the Boston Celtics have the tradition and the Miami Heat have Pat Riley. But from a purely financial standpoint, here’s what makes the most sense for Durant: signing a two-year, maximum contract with the Thunder with a player option for Year Two, otherwise known as a “1+1” deal.
For starters, the deal allows him to make at least one more run at a title with OKC. Russell Westbrook has one year left on his contract, and the team made a shrewd move by dealing Serge Ibaka, whose production has dipped, to the Orlando Magic for solid role players in Ersan Ilyasova and Victor Oladipo and a promising young prospect in Domantas Sabonis. The Thunder came within one game of reaching the NBA Finals this season and proved they are fully capable of knocking off the Warriors or Spurs.
The real icing on the cake, however, will come after the 2016-17 season. Thanks to the NBA’s lucrative new TV deal, the salary cap is expected to rise from $70 million to $92 million this summer, but the cap is expected to spike again to $107 million ahead of the 2017-18 season.
What does that mean for Durant? He’ll likely earn the NBA maximum at around $26 million next season, but if he declines his player option and re-enters free agency in 2017, he can sign an even more massive long-term contract — in OKC or elsewhere — that could net him roughly $40 million per year. A deal like that will be pretty hard to turn down.
Add in the fact that Durant has been with Thunder since the Seattle SuperSonics days and helped build the team from the ground up in Oklahoma City, and it’s hard to imagine the superstar forward landing elsewhere. Staying in OKC for at least one more year makes the most sense for Durant — from a basketball perspective, an emotional perspective and, most importantly, a financial perspective.
Thumbnail photo Kevin Jairaj/USA TODAY Sports Images
