Kevin Durant's New Decision In This CBA Landscape

It always made the most sense last summer for Kevin Durant to sign a one year contract with a player option for a second year in order to have as much guaranteed money as possible while maintaining his flexibility this coming summer. As I wrote at the time, that allows him to sign his long-term deal after having 10 years of NBA experience, which means that rather than the 30% he could have signed for at the time, he's eligible for a maximum salary of 35% of the salary cap and in a summer with a higher salary cap (currently projected at $101 million) than last year's $94,143,000. However, he will now have to decide whether it's smart to take the same approach again and wait another year for that massive new contract that's coming, or go for as much guaranteed as possible right now even though the Warriors only have his Non-Bird rights. Since there's such a long break before the start of the Finals this Thursday and already a ton of great preview pieces for that, I decided to take a look at KD's options and how they will affect what the team can do this summer under the new CBA and cap projections.

Durant and Andre Iguodala go all the way back to the 2010 Team USA squad with Stephen Curry.

The Warriors were diligent in their signings after Durant like I said they would need to be in order to not have any other new contracts locked in this year. Because they don't have his full Bird rights yet, they'll need to use cap space in order to give him the max salary possible. Quick primer on those special rights to re-sign your own free agents: you gain Non-Bird rights after one year with a team (can exceed the salary cap at up to 120% of the previous salary on a deal of 1-4 years with 5% raises), you gain Early Bird after two years with a team (can exceed the cap up to 175% of the previous salary on a deal of 2-4 years with 8% raises), and you gain full Bird rights after three years with a team (can exceed the cap up to the max salary on a deal of 1-5 years with 8% raises). Thus, he can only sign a four year, $152,005,000 contract this summer if they clear the space for his $35,350,000 starting salary by renouncing their rights to all other free agents aside from Stephen Curry, who needs to be the last player to officially re-sign since his cap hold is much lower than what he'll actually sign for (likely $205,030,000 over five years as he's eligible for the Designated Veteran Extension). That would only leave a little over $4 million in cap space to give to anyone else, though, and that's a problem since Andre Iguodala is also a free agent and a core part of the team. He's embodied their selfless culture with his passing mentality and willingness to come off the bench over the years, and there's a reason he was in the room for the recruiting pitch to Durant as they were teammates on both the 2010 and 2012 iterations of Team USA. Out of all the role players, the former Finals MVP is clearly the priority to retain.

2017 Lottery and All-NBA Implications

The Summer of George has already started with last Tuesday's Lottery drawing and Thursday's announcements of the All-NBA teams impacting the future of Paul George, with Gordon Hayward affected to a certain extent, as well. I want to flesh out certain ideas about all of the possibilities the Celtics might do with the top pick now that they've been eliminated from the playoffs, but first, here are some of my thoughts on the implications of the ping pong ball results:

• This is now the third straight year that the team with the best lottery combinations has won the #1 pick, ending a previous streak of never ending up with the top pick in the current format that started in 2005. Thanks to their trade with Brooklyn in 2013, Boston won this pick the night after making it to the Eastern Conference Finals, and although a top team getting their choice of top prospects for unfair reinforcements might seem crazy, the 1979, 1980, and 1982 #1 picks also went to the Lakers and Celtics due to previous deals. 
• Before you get started with conspiracy theories that favor two of the league's most storied franchises, take a look at the actual drawings below and try to figure out how the results might be (illegally) rigged. Because a 1 kept getting drawn, the Celtics, whose 250 combinations make up the majority of the 286 results that include 1, remarkably won the first three drawings before the 14-5-3-12 drawing gave the Lakers the #2 pick, and none of those numbers matched the initial winning combo of 7-1-9-10. New GM Rob Pelinka would also give his doppelganger Rob Lowe a run for his money with his acting chops if that wasn't genuine relief that he showed around the 12:49 mark here: