Most fans and NBA players were absolutely stunned when former Oklahoma City Thunder forward and face of the franchise decided to leave OKC to head West. Kevin Durant signed a two-year deal with the Golden State Warriors that includes a player option on the second year.
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Nobody saw the move coming and it sounds like even the higher-ups within the Warriors organization didn't see it coming. Warriors president and COO Rick Weltz on the CBS Sports Radio's Tiki and Tierney on Friday to discuss the summer dealings the Warriors were involved in and he said that the Warriors never expected to actually sign Kevin Durant, and now that they have him, they have to show him that he should stay for the rest of his career:
"Well, I think we had hope," Warriors President and COO Rick Welts said on CBS Sports Radio's Tiki and Tierney. "We, like every other team, probably didn't think it was going to happen, and I can assure you we had no indication it was going to happen until the phone rang at 7:30 in the morning in Bob Myers' cabin on Lake Tahoe and Kevin called to give us his decision. I think there was a lot of screaming and yelling going on in the Myers' cabin at that point in time."
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"There's no commitment from Kevin," Welts said. "He signed a one-year contract with a player option. So I think the hope and expectation is there's a business reason for doing that more than there is a basketball reason for doing that. We've got to be a place that is as good as he thought it was when he selected the Warriors over the other options that he had. I think we're going through a really interesting time in our league. We're all trying to figure out what the new world is going to look like."
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It's been about two weeks since the announcement came and still people can't quite believe it's happening. The Warriors didn't have to give up any of their three All-Stars in Draymond Green, Klay Thompson or Steph Curry and get to add a top-3 player in Durant after winning a record 73 games last season. Granted, the bench squad is pretty much all gone and now they're signing all the vets who will take the minimum at this point to fill out the rest of the roster. But it's totally worth it to play with a guy like Durant.
[h/t CBSSports.com]
