Celtics And Spurs Are The Latest Teams To Enter Chase For Kevin Durant

Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder were in the middle of their second consecutive blowout win, a 130-109 win on the road at TD Garden.  That is when the 2013-14 NBA MVP stepped to the free throw line.

Durant calmly sunk the two shots from the charity stripe as he was being showered with chants of “Come to Boston!” Giving fans in Beantown a taste of what he would look like in green, “The Slim Reaper” torched the C’s for 28 points in just 30 minutes and flirted with his second triple double by adding seven rebounds and nine assists plus two blocked shots.

Durant’s impending free agency has cause much speculation about where he will play next season once he hits the open market in July.

Reports say that Durant has stated he wants to win a title as soon as possible and a number of contending teams will have salary cap space to afford the superstar thanks to a huge spike in the salary cap to around $90 million. Among the championship contending teams most often linked to “The Durantula” are Oklahoma City, Golden State, San Antonio, and most recently the Celtics, who believe they are one star player away from being the best team in the Eastern Conference.

Now in his ninth season Durant has spent his entire career with the Thunder franchise since being drafted second overall in the 2007 NBA Draft out of Texas by the Seattle SuperSonics. Oklahoma City has been one of the top teams in the NBA since Durant and Russell Westbrook have taken the league by storm, highlighted by a NBA Finals appearance in 2012.

Despite all the regular season success for Durant and the Thunder, they lost to LeBron James and the Miami Heat in the 2012 Finals and have not been back to the Finals since. Oklahoma City traded away shooting guard James Harden to Houston shortly before the 2012-13 season tipped off in a swap that has seen Harden transform into one of the league’s top players and a MVP candidate while the only player remaining on the Thunder from what they got in return is Steven Adams.

The Thunder have also suffered a number of untimely injuries that have derailed any chance at a return to the Finals. Against Harden and the Rockets in the first round of the playoffs in 2013, Westbrook tore his meniscus, OKC lost advanced to the second round before being eliminated by Memphis. The injury caused Westbrook to miss 36 games the next season. In 2014, Durant’s MVP season, Serge Ibaka went down with a calf injury in the Western Conference semi-finals. After initially being ruled out for the rest of the playoffs, Ibaka returned after the Thunder were trailing 2-0 in the Conference Finals to the Spurs, OKC lost the series 4-2.

Last season it was Durant who went down with injury. Durant suffered a Jones fracture (a broken bone in the midsection of the foot, near the little toe) in his right foot during the offseason after withdrawing from the Team USA Basketball World Cup Team. The injury cause him to miss the first 17 games of the season before returning December 2 against New Orleans. Just 16 days later, he sprained his ankle in the closing seconds of the first half against the Warriors after scoring 30 points in under 19 minutes. He was able to return on the 31st, dropping 44 on the Phoenix Suns.

That wasn’t the end for Durant, he sprained his big toe in January and then on February 22 he underwent surgery to help reduce pain and discomfort in his right foot. He never returned to action after the operation and was ruled out for the season on March 27. The Thunder missed the playoffs for the first time since 2008-09, Harden and Ibaka’s rookie season.

A report came out a few weeks ago saying that if the Thunder do not at least make the Finals, he is going to leave Oklahoma. Given the meteoric rise of defending champion Golden State and their pursuit of a NBA record 73 wins and the ageless wonder that is San Antonio, it is unlikely the Thunder emerge as the Western Conference champions.

A lot of people think Durant fits well the reigning champs. The Warriors play a fast paced game and like to spread the floor to get their shooters good looks at the basket. Adding a player of Durant’s caliber to Golden State -at least on paper- almost guarantees a dynasty in the mold of the Bird-McHale-Parish Celtics of the 80’s that won three championships.

The Spurs are the most recent team to appear in the Durant conversation. San Antonio has made the playoffs every season since 1997 recently said they “will explore ways” to sign the 6’9 forward. Durant has a tendency to play isolation basketball a lot and that has not been the Spurs’ style under Gregg Popovich. The team is preparing for the inevitable retirement of stars Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobli. Together the three along with Popovich have won four NBA Titles. But the Spurs have a new core to lead them into the future in Kawhi Leonard, widely regarded as the best defender and two way player in the league, and LaMarcus Aldridge, who signed with the Spurs in the offseason. Aldridge said a big reason he signed with San Antonio is that Popovich told him that he will continue to coach after Duncan & Co. retire.

The Celtics will have a lot of cap space for their pursuit of Durant, one of the most prolific scorers in league history. Boston is currently in third place in the East and have a lot of young talented players like Isiah Thomas and Avery Bradley that could prove to be a nice supporting cast for a superstar of Durant’s caliber.

Almost every team in the NBA will have money to sign a star player to a max contract this offseason. With the rumor of Durant wanting to win immediately, teams like the Lakers and his hometown Washington Wizards -Durant is from Maryland- have fallen out of the public and media conversation. That leaves teams like OKC and Golden State the favorites for his services.

Wherever Durant ends up, that team will automatically become a contender if they aren’t already. The forward has denied making any comment on the pending offseason and remains solely focused on this season and helping the Thunder achieve the ultimate goal of winning a championship.

Article by Nick Vigliotti