Warriors owner Joe Lacob says the defending two-time NBA champs will have to convince Kevin Durant to sign on the dotted line all over again when he becomes an unrestricted free agent.
Lacob would, of course, have preferred for Durant to ink a longer deal than the one-year pact he agreed to in July.
TK Show: Warriors owner Joe Lacob on edging out Larry Ellison, signing DeMarcus Cousins, and more: @timkawakami https://t.co/xtAkOdAUS8
— The Athletic (@TheAthleticSF) September 19, 2018
KD will be eligible for a five-year max deal with Golden State worth over $221 million next summer.
Per The Athletic (via NBCS Bay Area):
“Sure. I would have liked to have had him — we would have liked to have had him — been here longer; sign a long-term deal,” Lacob told The Athletic’s Tim Kawakami on The TK Show Podcast. “But on the other hand, we’re happy to have him. And you know, by him signing a one-year deal, it did save us a little bit of money actually.
“So it allows us to do some other things. Like maybe we wouldn’t have DeMarcus Cousins as an example. KD’s been great. He’s my hero, man. He has been a really good partner for us. He’s taken a little bit of a discount the last few years to allow us to do a few extra things. And I’m never gonna forget that.”
He also might decide to leave the Warriors, and Lacob understands the franchise will have to re-recruit the two-time NBA Finals MVP.
“Of course we do,” Lacob told Kawakami. “He deserves to be able to go and be happy wherever he wants to be. I hope it’s here. And I hope he feels the same that way I do, and we do, about him when it comes time next summer. But you never can predict these things.
“We just will do our job and he’ll do his job, and we’ll see what happens next summer. And let the chips fall where they may.”
