Thunder general manager Sam Presti addressed Kevin Durant’s decision to leave OKC and sign a deal with the Golden State Warriors on Monday.
Presti, once again, thanked KD for everything he did for the franchise and the community that surrounds it over the past nine years.
Here's Kevin Durant's picture coming down outside the arena: pic.twitter.com/xRR6tEMCV8
— Royce Young (@royceyoung) July 5, 2016
Sam Presti was asked what Oklahomans should feel about Kevin Durant today. Gave a great response: pic.twitter.com/PgqAx11H5B
— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) July 5, 2016
The GM says that his front-office was disappointed but not necessarily shocked by Durant’s seismic departure as a free agent.
Per The Oklahoman:
Have you talked to Russ yet? […] Presti: “I have not personally talked to Russell (Westbrook). We’ve communicated through texts and then several of our staff members have talked with him. I’ve been attending to other parts of my duties, but I’ll talk with Russell and the other guys here probably either tonight or tomorrow.”
Q. Last time we heard from you, you sounded pretty confident that he’d stay. Were you surprised at all by the decision he made? […] Presti: “Well, I mean, I think that’s your categorization of confident. I don’t think I ever said that I was confident he would stay. I think what I said up until today was this is a decision that he’s earned the right to make. We’ve worked with incredible intention and integrity for eight years to try to build an organization that had a chance to compete year in and year out, that was synonymous with the core values of Oklahoma and Oklahoma City, and we were hopeful that that would be something he would want to continue to be a part of and represent for a very long time. But we’re under no illusion that he would be back or he wouldn’t be back. That was something that we understood and understood for a long time. I wouldn’t categorize it like we were confident or we were pessimistic. We just were ourselves.”
Q. Did you get any sense in the meetings over the weekend that it might be headed this direction, or did you feel — […] Presti: “Well, I mean, when you do this long enough, you can — I would say this: I would say we have means known and unknown to try to understand and interpret where things probably are headed, and so we had a pretty good indication, I think, that this was a potential outcome.”
