The Many Ripple Effects Of The Kevin Durant-Warriors Decision

With Kevin Durant agreeing to join the Golden State Warriors, here are the many ripple effects of his power move across the NBA.

With Kevin Durant agreeing to sign a two-year, $54.3 million contract with the Golden State Warriors (with a player option for the second year), the biggest domino of 2016 free agency has fallen.

Though plenty of marquee free agents have made their commitments already, Durant is without question the largest rock thrown into the offseason pond, and the ripple effects of his decision to join forces with a 73-win team will be felt throughout the league.

Coming off the winningest regular season in NBA history and a disappointing seven-game loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals, the Dubs had plenty of questions to ponder over the course of a long summer.

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Was Stephen Curry‘s MCL sprain midway through the playoffs part of his inconsistency in the Finals? What happened to Klay Thompson, who ignited one of the greatest players in NBA history thanks to his “This is a man’s league” comments?

Would the Warriors’ fate have been different if Draymond Green hadn’t been suspended for Game 5? And how did one of the NBA’s stingiest defenses fail to slow LeBron James, who dominated every facet of the series from Game 2 onward?

With the addition of Kevin Durant, those questions are rendered all but irrelevant. When you add one of the top five players in the league to another top-five player, when you have a core of pissed off stars looking to avenge playoff defeats after going up 3-1, and when you have a roster where Klay Thompson is your fourth best player, chances are you’re going to alter the course of the 2016-17 season — and possibly NBA history in general.

With Durant making the biggest offseason power move the NBA has seen since LeBron James teamed up with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh on the Miami Heat, it’s time to take a look at the many ripple effects his decision will have on the Warriors, the poor Thunder and the league as a whole.

Next: Golden State Warriors

Golden State Warriors

The Thunder, Warriors, San Antonio Spurs, Boston Celtics, Miami Heat all vied for Kevin Durant’s services, and no matter which team he chose, that team would’ve been a bonafide title contender.

The fact that he chose the best team of the bunch — a team whose Finals defeat marked the greatest upset in NBA history after winning 73 games — is downright terrifying for the rest of the league.

With a core of Curry, Thompson, KD, Green, Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston, the Warriors had already laid the foundations of quite possibly the greatest team in NBA history. Adding veteran center Zaza Pachulia on an unbelievable bargain contract only strengthens their case.

With Durant joining the Dubs on a max deal, sacrifices are necessary. Restricted free agents Harrison Barnes and Festus Ezeli — two promising young players who have bright futures, contrary to what the general public would lead you to believe in the wake of their disastrous finish to the Finals — have to be renounced.

Andrew Bogut has to be traded to shed his $11 salary, and he will be dealt to the Dallas Mavericks for a second round pick. Bogut will join his good friend Barnes in a mass exodus to the Big D, as the Mavs will be making the Dubs’ former starting small forward a max four-year offer.

The Warriors will lose two talented starters, their backup center, and quite possibly part of their ultra-deep bench that inspired the “Strength In Numbers” slogan during this Durant annexation.

That being said, it’s hard to feel too concerned about the Warriors’ loss of depth in the assembling of a potential dynasty. That six-man core was already scary enough before the Dubs were able to land a starting-caliber center on a minimum contract.

Now that they’ve landed Pachulia, who averaged 8.6 points and 9.4 rebounds per game last season for the Mavericks, the 5-spot has been addressed.

As one of the league’s more underrated defenders who recorded 23 double-doubles last season, the 32-year-old Pachulia brings veteran experience, rebounding and defense to a team that needed all three of those things from whatever replacement center they found.

Zaza is no Bogut, Ezeli could be good if he weren’t so injury-prone, and the Dubs are punting on Barnes’ potential at only 23 years old. But those are the sacrifices necessary to unite the MVPs over the last three years, and a core that sexy is prime for attracting quality role players willing to sacrifice a pay raise — even amidst the biggest spending spree in NBA history — in the pursuit of a title.

Could Marreese Speights or Leandro Barbosa be in play for being re-signed to veteran minimum contracts? It’s possible, although they could hardly be blamed for accepting well-earned pay days elsewhere, especially with the way the Warriors’ season came to such a disappointing end.

But the lure of Durant, Curry and Thompson spreading the floor might be too great for some useful veterans who want to be a part of NBA history. Pachulia represents the stop-gap before head coach Steve Kerr unleashes the most dynamic small-ball lineup in NBA history, and there should be plenty of players willing to join the party.

Next: Oklahoma City Thunder

Oklahoma City Thunder

While the construction of a new NBA Death Star is fantastic for the Warriors, you have to feel for the Oklahoma City Thunder, who just lost out on their best chance at a title for the foreseeable future.

While Russell Westbrook is at worst a top-10 player in this league, OKC has been unable to even reach the Finals since their first and only appearance in 2012…and that was with Kevin Durant.

Without him, the Thunder still project to be a playoff team next summer. The Russell Westbrook Show will be in full effect, and the Serge Ibaka trade infused new youth and talent on OKC’s roster between Victor Oladipo, stretch-4 Ersan Ilyasova and the No. 11 pick in this year’s draft, Domantas Sabonis.

As tantalizing as a Westbrook-Oladipo-KD-Andre Roberson–Steven Adams lineup might have been on the defensive end, it wasn’t meant to be. Now the Thunder are left without a starting-caliber 3, let alone the kind of superstar that embodied the franchise the way Durant did.

The worst part is that between OKC’s semi-limited cap space and the shortage of starting-caliber 3s on the free agency market right now, the Thunder’s best option may be playing Roberson out of position at the small forward spot and hoping he and Oladipo can knock down enough threes to spread the floor.

It’s not just about how the Thunder fare in 2016-17, however. Next summer, Westbrook will become a free agent and without Kevin Durant around, there’s not as much reason to stick around.

At this point, OKC tops off as a second round playoff team, and that may not be good enough for Russ to stay, especially when so many other teams start throwing money at him in yet another free agency bonanza.

As expected, Westbrook’s party is not open to renegotiating his contract in order to keep him on the team for the long-term, and according to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, the Thunder may consider trading him to initiate a full roster deconstruction.

Losing Kevin Durant and the shot at a title is bad enough, but shipping off Westbrook after dealing Ibaka away represents the culmination of a domino effect that slowly began the moment OKC traded away James Harden. All that remains of that once tantalizing foursome that reached the Finals in their early 20s is Westbrook now.

Thunder fans may be left wondering what might have been if not for Klay Thompson’s 41-point explosion in Game 6 in OKC. In the last few minutes of that game, the Thunder’s best shot at a title over the next decade may have slipped away.

Next: Dallas Mavericks

Dallas Mavericks

Out of all the non-involved teams in the league, Durant’s decision will affect the Dallas Mavericks the most.

Mark Cuban missed out on DeAndre Jordan last year in the most unforgettable renege in NBA history. He lost Chandler Parsons, he missed out on Hassan Whiteside despite a max offer, and even Dwight Howard was no longer an option after the Atlanta Hawks surprisingly scooped him up.

Thanks to Durant’s decision, Cuban will reel in his first major, non-Parsons free agent in years.

Unfortunately for the Mavs, Harrison Barnes and Andrew Bogut are hardly the kind of handsome haul needed to send Dirk Nowitzki out in style.

With Parsons accepting the Memphis Grizzlies’ four-year max offer and Pachulia hitting free agency/getting picked up by the Warriors, Dallas had some very apparent needs for their starting five. With Barnes and Bogut joining the party, those needs have been addressed.

Valley of the Suns

Unfortunately for Dirk and the Mavs, these pickups hardly move the needle for a franchise that’s constantly retooled to try and make Nowitzki’s teams competitive, using Elmer’s glue and duct tape to fix leaking pipes that have long needed professional maintenance.

Bogut is an underrated center with championship experience, and despite that crumbling act in the Finals, Barnes is still a versatile, 24-year-old small forward/power forward hybrid. The max offer won’t reflect his inconsistency despite being placed in the most pristine of conditions, but Barnes is far more useful than people realize.

The sad truth, though, is that these acquisitions will probably be enough to keep Dirk around, which means the greatest player in Mavericks franchise history is likely doomed to spending his last 1-3 years playing for a mediocre team that’s good enough for a first round playoff exit and little more.

At the very least, he’ll get the massive pay raise he deserves after sacrificing money for years to try and help the Mavs assemble a contender, even though his imminent two-year, $40 million is still something of a discount.

A core of Deron Williams, Wesley Matthews, Barnes, Dirk and Bogut is certainly good enough to bother a few teams. A healthier Matthews could shake off a lot of the rust we saw in 2015-16, Bogut is an upgrade from Pachulia and even though Barnes is nowhere near the individual player that Parsons is, he’s still a defensive wing who shot 38.3 percent from downtown last season.

The Mavs can look back on the 2016 offseason and say they landed two extremely useful players, all courtesy of Kevin Durant’s decision to join a 73-win team. Unfortunately, they can also say that this turn of events all but sentenced the end of Nowitzki’s career to the same state of NBA purgatory he’s been in for years now.

Next: The Rest Of The League

The Rest Of The League

The Mavs are the biggest byproduct of Kevin Durant’s decision among the non-involved teams, but there’s no question the ripple effects extend to the rest of the league.

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For starters, any dreams of the Cleveland Cavaliers repeating as NBA champions have since turned to nightmares. Although the Cavs pulled off the greatest upset in Finals history and LeBron finally brought a title back to his home, Cleveland has no cap room to improve its roster and is about to lose Matthew Dellavedova to a four-year offer from the Milwaukee Bucks.

If LeBron goes into full Terminator mode in the Finals again next year, perhaps Cleveland will have a fighting chance against a super-team undergoing its first full season together. But he did that this year, against a team that didn’t have Kevin Durant, and the Warriors were still a Draymond Green suspension away from possibly closing out the series in five games.

Durant has never found lasting success against LeBron in this league, but he’ll be plugged into a system that’s perfectly suited for his talents on a team that’s had the Cavs’ number over the last two years (until falling apart in the last three games of the Finals, of course).

With the formation of another super-team, there’s another angle to consider: the understandable outrage of a former MVP joining the reigning MVP — in both of their primes — to dominate a league that some already felt was lacking in parity.

At this rate, only the San Antonio Spurs and the newly acquired Pau Gasol can hold a candle to the Warriors in the West, and even they might crumble under the sheer amount of firepower and perimeter shooting the Warriors bring to the table.

For the time being, we’re all but guaranteed a Part 3 of Warriors vs. Cavaliers in 2017. That lack of drama will rub a lot of people the wrong way, and you can be guaranteed this perfectly legal move will raise questions — and possibly a lockout — by the time the next Collective Bargaining Agreement comes into play.

More hoops habit: How The Golden State Warriors' Historic Season Slipped Away

The creation of super-teams is not a new concept, but the Warriors have perfected it by landing one of the best five players in the league. Only time will tell if that leads to more championships, pardoning Durant’s legacy and his decision to leave OKC while also ushering in a new and completely controversial era of NBA basketball.