When the Warriors and Kevin Durant agreed to a discounted contract last offseason – $51.3MM over two seasons with a player option in year two – there was reportedly an understanding between the two parties that Durant would seek a contract more in line with his value this offseason.
However, according to Anthony Slater of The Athletic, there are now rumblings that Durant, who becomes an unrestricted free agent tonight after choosing not to exercise his $26.3MM player option for next season, is leaning towards signing another two-year contract with a player option in year two, commonly known as a “1+1” deal.
Because the Warriors hold Durant’s Early Bird rights and not his full Bird rights, the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement would only allow a contract starting with an estimated maximum salary of $35.35MM if the deal is at least two seasons long. And, under the CBA, a “1+1” contract does not qualify as a two-year contract under these circumstances.
Accordingly, Durant would only be eligible for a starting salary of $30MM – 120% of his 2017/18 salary of $25MM – should he choose to sign another “1+1” deal. Such an agreement would use his Non-Bird rights, and would allow him to reach the open market again in 2019. At that point, he’d have full Bird rights and would qualify for a five-year max deal.
Slater adds that if Durant were to take less money again, it would save the Warriors “a ton” in tax money, which would increase the likelihood that the Warriors use the full value of their taxpayer MLE – estimated to be $5.3MM – in free agency.
God forbid. What if he needs more than $26 million this year to feed his family? I don’t know how these guys survive on these discounts. I know, let’s start a GoFundMe page. Or we can go all out and finally bring back the Labor Day telethon for a worthy cause. Forget muscular dystrophy, let’s get Kevin Durant a third home.
Would you be willing to leave a 20% raise to stay at your current job if another company was offering you that much more?
If I made as much as Durant did last year, I would ONLY work where I wanted to. For that matter, I would probably retire and travel the world. With $26 million, I could live a very nice life and never have to work again. Anything more than that is just greed.
And there’s a ton of people in the world that would say the same about your salary.
Confused by this, any discount Durant takes goes directly to a billionaire owner. It’s not like tickets will be cheaper or your taxes will be lower if he takes less money.
I don’t care about Durant getting money. But stop using the word discount as if he is buying canned goods without a label at the drug store.
That’s because no one else is taking “discounts”. Prices went up with player salary. And it’s not like the owners magically got a team then made billions. Most had to make money first. And if they pulled back all these bloated salaries and didnt reduce prices across the board the fans would set fire to stadiums inunison. It would be like a union war in the industrial revolution.
Right now it seems pointless but in 40 years you never know what twists and turns life takes always make as much as you can. Why help the rich owner ? I wouldn’t be shocked if there isn’t an under the table deal so the owner can avoid taxes
Maybe because without the “rich owner” none of us would be able to enjoy professional sports at all. Without pro sports, Durant is probably a car salesman or something dominating pick up games at the Y. Everyone always wants to make it out like the billionaire owners are Scrooge and the players are Bob Cratchit just trying to use an extra lump of coal. Even minimum salary players make 10 times the amount of the average American, so don’t make it sound like the players aren’t rich.
homer!
It’s not helping the rich owner. Keep increasing salaries keep increasing ticket and consession prices. Why I’ve stopped going to sporting events since 2012.
Why take a discount? It doesn’t give them any extra cap space.
I’m curious too. I’d bet there is something illegal going on if he takes another discount such as paying durant money under the table of what he would get after taxes.
The team is willing to spend only X amount due to the luxury tax they’d be hit with. 10M more could equate to, for example 40M in over the cap tax penalties, and the team wouldn’t be willing to sign anyone else – exception or not. If D Jordan was willing to take the 5M exception for example to play with his buddy KD, KD would probably have to help the team out on the tax situation and give a discount in order to make it happen, otherwise the team could be paying 60M in taxes, which I’m sure they’d balk at.
Taking the discount would also allow Durant to sign a 5-yr max deal next summer, whereas this summer he could only sign 4-yr max deal.
Right he is not really taking a discount to get the full 5year super max he has to a do another 1+1. This limits his 18-19 salary to 120% of his previous year.
He is going to give them a discount one way or the other.
hes got his titles, no more discounts. pay the man, ALL of it
The NBA salary cap is a joke.
Agreed. It’s not really doing/preventing what it was intended to do.
He’s probably going back to OKC next summer and just go for the 3 peat this season.
Wow you are clueless. He isn’t going anywhere. They’re gonna win as many championships as possible to be regarded as one of the best dynasties ever.
Hate to burst your bubble bud, but Durant knows his rings mean nothing since he didn’t earn them. He’s gone.
Like the Sixers when they tanked, gave tickets away basically. Once they thought they would be good upped prices 300%.
I am not particularly happy with players taking discounts, while owners get more money in their pockets, but that’s how sometimes the cookie crumbles, right? Look any international company like McDonalds, Coca-Cola, banks all of them have got easily 80 execs making more money every year in salaries & bonus than the majority of players, so I do find players do entertain me a lot, fat cat execs not so much, & with the financial mess they created a few years ago, don’t think they do much good for their salary neither, so my point is that players are in no way overpaid, if anything all the opposite IMHO.
In this instance, winning titles ends up giving making him more valuable for endorsements. He may be open to earning less in salary but his total compensation will be greater.
It’s more of a deferral than a discount. He will sign a 1+1 instead of a 4 now, so he can sign the max 5 next year, or something like that. It’s all play money at this point.