Great Durant Insight From his Godfather and AAU Coach on why he really joined GSW

[David Wood]

Taras Brown, KD's AAU Coach and mentor came on a warriors Podcast I sometimes listen to. He was surprisingly candid and dropped all types of insight on Durant. When asked why KD came to Golden State, he said:

"The real reason is because he wanted to play basketball with people that wanted to give everything they got. It wasn't so much about going to Golden State to win a championship as 90% of the world thinks. It was about he wanted to play with guys his age that wanted to work hard and play basketball the right way. It was never about the championship."

I guess it's not surprising, but it was surprising to hear. Isn't that a direct shot at Westbrook?

Coach also said: "I've never seen him more relaxed, more content, and more happy... "I expect (to resign). Kevin has always been loyal and doesn't jump from place to place . . . Id be hard pressed to see him not want to be a part of this."

This podcast isn't always good,but this episode is worth hearing. (They talk about KD v Steph's AAU showdown at 9'years old.) If you care, here's the link:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/warriors-huddle/2017/01/21/taras-brown-durants-mentor-godfather-coach-opens-up-about-kd

[Coxy]

Durant's a much deeper character than what what most NBA fans want to have to understand. I read so much about how "Superstars are supposed to do XXXXX............", but a guy like Durant isn't your typical NBA player. Most fans don't want to acknowledge that so he's an easy target to attack. Kevin just wants to spend the best years of his life with people he respects and likes. There were things in OKC that weren't right for him, that didn't make him happy, so for him, that was the biggest factor in him wanting to find his basketball oasis for the only life he gets.

I've been in situations in my working life where I was paid really really well, and I walked away because I didn't like the people I was working with. My family thought I was crazy, but I knew it was the right thing to do. You only live once, why spend it with other human beings you don't like if you don't have to? Pretty easy decision for mine. You don't owe anything to anyone else on this planet, especially when that directly effects your happiness. The fact that a guy like Durant decided that Golden State was the happy place he wanted, makes me love this ball club more than ever. Lacob = GOAT owner right now.

[Little Digger]

Don't mean to be cold, but I already knew why KD wanted to play with these warriors..He's even said it a few times, it's just that hardly anybody actually listened and assumed it was all about an easier path to a NBA title.

[Mylie10]

Don't mean to be cold, but I already knew why KD wanted to play with these warriors..He's even said it a few times, it's just that hardly anybody actually listened and assumed it was all about an easier path to a NBA title.

Same here. We had discussions way back on why KD would want to play here. I will disagree with AAU coach on the fact that championships weren't the reason, but I'm sure it's a huge factor based on logic and the potential.

[David Wood]

That's fair, and I guess I'm not surprised at the idea behind the comments. I'm a little surprised that it's not getting more media attention however. It seems like anything that could be read as negativity from Durant to Westbrook is viewed as Media Gold. I'm glad that's died down a little.

I loved what the coach said about Durant as a teammate. Also loved the story about KD v. Steph at 9 years old, and how good Curry was even back then.

[and1GS]

I don't think this is a 'direct shot at Westbrook' so much as it is a shot at the team they put together. If I was him I'd be more pissed that Serge Ibaka fell off a cliff than Russ taking a dumb jumper at the end of regulation. The only reason OKC rivaled us was because of their big 2...the gap of talent between their 3-9 guy and ours both in basketball IQ and talent is absurd.

Who would you rather see picking up the lack when your top two options are covered - Penes Kanter and Dion Wiaters or Klay and Andre?

Smart players want to play with smart players. The most frustrating feeling as an athlete is when you can visualize what a teammate should have done, but they aren't mentally capable of seeing it. That can be as simple as an extra skip apss, and we do that a ton.

[likashing]

They went to the Finals and let Harden go. It is obvious finance is more important than winning to that franchise.

If you were a star engineer or physician, would you rather work for a 2nd tier company/hospital or Google/Apple/Facebook/Stanford/UCSF?

[Kuya]

They went to the Finals and let Harden go. It is obvious finance is more important than winning to that franchise.

If you were a star engineer or physician, would you rather work for a 2nd tier company/hospital or Google/Apple/Facebook/Stanford/UCSF?

They had to either pay 6th man Harden or shot blocking Ibaka.

[DreDay]

Don't mean to be cold, but I already knew why KD wanted to play with these warriors..He's even said it a few times, it's just that hardly anybody actually listened and assumed it was all about an easier path to a NBA title.

Warriors fans generally understood, it was the fans of everyone else who assume ring chasing is the primary motivation. I'm sure it helps that the Warriors are great but it's hardly the only factor. Takes one look to see how well Durant is fitting in here.

[likashing]

They went to the Finals and let Harden go. It is obvious finance is more important than winning to that franchise.

If you were a star engineer or physician, would you rather work for a 2nd tier company/hospital or Google/Apple/Facebook/Stanford/UCSF?

They had to either pay 6th man Harden or shot blocking Ibaka.

You have just reinforced my point. They had to choose 1 because they could not afford both. That was a Finals team with young stars.

The top ownership groups in the league wouldn't mind getting into the tax for such a group of players.

OKC is not in that category. OKC struck gold in getting 3 * 2017 MVP candidates through the draft, and could not afford to keep the team.

When you are a star in your profession, you can work anywhere. That usually is not a 2nd tier organization.

[old rem]

seems OKC had Bird Rights.. but....not enough money in the bank?

ANYHOW.. just recent BOTH Durant + Curry were clear about being happy ,wanting to stay. GSW IS quite able to Max both. GSW has over 200 games in a row sold out. GSW COULD make the new arena BIGGER (by plenty) and sell out. Probably Parking is a limitation.....as usual in the City. Anyhow.... the Bay Area supports GSW.

[Mylie10]

Heard Lacob say they are not making the new arena much bigger. They want to try and maintain the ambience and octaves of the current arena if possible.

[Andre Roberstan]

seems OKC had Bird Rights.. but....not enough money in the bank?

ANYHOW.. just recent BOTH Durant + Curry were clear about being happy ,wanting to stay. GSW IS quite able to Max both. GSW has over 200 games in a row sold out. GSW COULD make the new arena BIGGER (by plenty) and sell out. Probably Parking is a limitation.....as usual in the City. Anyhow.... the Bay Area supports GSW.

League screwed us by retroactively applying the Rose Rule to That Guy's contract. I've heard a lot of different things from both Harden and others through media, but the Woj article that came out immediately post-trade said Perkins told them way in advance that one of the 3 was going to be gone—could see it coming down the pike. And one of the guys I work with knew one of Harden's closer friends on the team, and that guy told him in the summer that Harden was gone. He would have taken the money, but from what he said one of those 3 was gone.

Don't believe the "Sam Presti gave him an hour to decide" business—they'd been in discussions long before that. The hour to decide thing was the very end of the negotiation process, and both sides were pretty well aware of where they stood.

Morey was the only one that was willing to even give up any value in the trade. There were 3 or 4 better guys that they'd been in discussions for (including Thompson, but we would have had to eat the Biedrins salary dump, which would have negated the point of trading Harden in the first place).

And yeah, the contract offer was motivated by fear of the tax. But not the regular tax—the repeater tax, which has not yet been paid by any team. Zach Lowe covered it about as well as anybody in this article.

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/ibakas-return-fuels-more-what-if-questions-about-james-harden/

If they'd had any inkling that the cap was going to jump the way it was, I think they would have paid that extra bit and dealt either Harden or Westbrook later, cause someone was going to wind up unhappy. Both are best with the ball in their hands. But we likely would have gotten a much better return with one more year of his production being made apparent. A lot of people forget that opinion on the trade was far more mixed at the time than it is now.

We've been screwed by league finances over and over: retroactive Rose Rule, cap jump that wasn't anticipated (Harden), cap jump that wasn't anticipated (That Guy), and now it comes out that the rookie cap hold changes that would have allowed us to make max cap space this offseason aren't hitting till 2018. Just when we locked up our guys in anticipation of them hitting this year.

And they added the DVE the year after we could have used it for That Guy, which I guarantee would make anyone think long and hard about leaving that much money on the table.

Thanks NBA. Good job, good effort.

TL;DR We have great luck drafting and garbage luck with everything else.

[Mylie10]

seems OKC had Bird Rights.. but....not enough money in the bank?

ANYHOW.. just recent BOTH Durant + Curry were clear about being happy ,wanting to stay. GSW IS quite able to Max both. GSW has over 200 games in a row sold out. GSW COULD make the new arena BIGGER (by plenty) and sell out. Probably Parking is a limitation.....as usual in the City. Anyhow.... the Bay Area supports GSW.

League screwed us by retroactively applying the Rose Rule to That Guy's contract. I've heard a lot of different things from both Harden and others through media, but the Woj article that came out immediately post-trade said Perkins told them way in advance that one of the 3 was going to be gone—could see it coming down the pike. And one of the guys I work with knew one of Harden's closer friends on the team, and that guy told him in the summer that Harden was gone. He would have taken the money, but from what he said one of those 3 was gone.

Don't believe the "Sam Presti gave him an hour to decide" business—they'd been in discussions long before that. The hour to decide thing was the very end of the negotiation process, and both sides were pretty well aware of where they stood.

Morey was the only one that was willing to even give up any value in the trade. There were 3 or 4 better guys that they'd been in discussions for (including Thompson, but we would have had to eat the Biedrins salary dump, which would have negated the point of trading Harden in the first place).

And yeah, the contract offer was motivated by fear of the tax. But not the regular tax—the repeater tax, which has not yet been paid by any team. Zach Lowe covered it about as well as anybody in this article.

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/ibakas-return-fuels-more-what-if-questions-about-james-harden/

If they'd had any inkling that the cap was going to jump the way it was, I think they would have paid that extra bit and dealt either Harden or Westbrook later, cause someone was going to wind up unhappy. Both are best with the ball in their hands. But we likely would have gotten a much better return with one more year of his production being made apparent. A lot of people forget that opinion on the trade was far more mixed at the time than it is now.

We've been screwed by league finances over and over: retroactive Rose Rule, cap jump that wasn't anticipated (Harden), cap jump that wasn't anticipated (That Guy), and now it comes out that the rookie cap hold changes that would have allowed us to make max cap space this offseason aren't hitting till 2018. Just when we locked up our guys in anticipation of them hitting this year.

And they added the DVE the year after we could have used it for That Guy, which I guarantee would make anyone think long and hard about leaving that much money on the table.

Thanks NBA. Good job, good effort.

TL;DR We have great luck drafting and garbage luck with everything else.

I think this is the Warriors biggest fear (what is bolded in red above)

[Andre Roberstan]

seems OKC had Bird Rights.. but....not enough money in the bank?

ANYHOW.. just recent BOTH Durant + Curry were clear about being happy ,wanting to stay. GSW IS quite able to Max both. GSW has over 200 games in a row sold out. GSW COULD make the new arena BIGGER (by plenty) and sell out. Probably Parking is a limitation.....as usual in the City. Anyhow.... the Bay Area supports GSW.

League screwed us by retroactively applying the Rose Rule to That Guy's contract. I've heard a lot of different things from both Harden and others through media, but the Woj article that came out immediately post-trade said Perkins told them way in advance that one of the 3 was going to be gone—could see it coming down the pike. And one of the guys I work with knew one of Harden's closer friends on the team, and that guy told him in the summer that Harden was gone. He would have taken the money, but from what he said one of those 3 was gone.

Don't believe the "Sam Presti gave him an hour to decide" business—they'd been in discussions long before that. The hour to decide thing was the very end of the negotiation process, and both sides were pretty well aware of where they stood.

Morey was the only one that was willing to even give up any value in the trade. There were 3 or 4 better guys that they'd been in discussions for (including Thompson, but we would have had to eat the Biedrins salary dump, which would have negated the point of trading Harden in the first place).

And yeah, the contract offer was motivated by fear of the tax. But not the regular tax—the repeater tax, which has not yet been paid by any team. Zach Lowe covered it about as well as anybody in this article.

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/ibakas-return-fuels-more-what-if-questions-about-james-harden/

If they'd had any inkling that the cap was going to jump the way it was, I think they would have paid that extra bit and dealt either Harden or Westbrook later, cause someone was going to wind up unhappy. Both are best with the ball in their hands. But we likely would have gotten a much better return with one more year of his production being made apparent. A lot of people forget that opinion on the trade was far more mixed at the time than it is now.

We've been screwed by league finances over and over: retroactive Rose Rule, cap jump that wasn't anticipated (Harden), cap jump that wasn't anticipated (That Guy), and now it comes out that the rookie cap hold changes that would have allowed us to make max cap space this offseason aren't hitting till 2018. Just when we locked up our guys in anticipation of them hitting this year.

And they added the DVE the year after we could have used it for That Guy, which I guarantee would make anyone think long and hard about leaving that much money on the table.

Thanks NBA. Good job, good effort.

TL;DR We have great luck drafting and garbage luck with everything else.

I think this is the Warriors biggest fear (what is bolded in red above)

I think it's just about every team's biggest fear. I'm watching the Cavs with bated breath to see what they do, cause they're about to blow into the repeater like a freight train. I don't have the exact numbers on hand, but they could be paying out a ludicrous amount of money this year. Dan Gilbert is going to have to pay through the nose to keep that team together.

Most teams are a little more cavalier about the luxury tax (OKC paid it, and we're "cheap"). But the repeater is going to suck up a ton of money.

[likashing]

OKC fans whining about the league screwing them, when the league conspired with Bennett to steal the team and screwed all Sonics fans.

Maybe Bennett shouldn't have lied and stole the team to a **** market. Should have known when you have a shallow (relatively) pocket and low revenue from a **** market, that means you cannot afford a contender.

[Andre Roberstan]

OKC fans whining about the league screwing them, when the league conspired with Bennett to steal the team and screwed all Sonics fans.

Maybe Bennett shouldn't have lied and stole the team to a **** market. Should have known when you have a shallow (relatively) pocket and low revenue from a **** market, that means you cannot afford a contender.

Might as well fold all teams not in California, New England or Chicago TBH

EDIT: Anyway, I'm not here to derail your thread. I'll bow out and head back to my board for now.

[likashing]

To put things into perspective, if you are $15m over the lux tax threshold, the lux tax is $45m. For the same amount over, you pay $65m as a repeater. Yes, that is $20m more, but a price most *not cheap* teams/owners are willing to pay for a real champ contender (i.e. top 3-4 teams that can get to the Finals).

The media throws out this "avoiding repeater tax" theory and the fans of **** market teams eat it like gospel.

You *can* sustain repeater tax depending on your business model. The 2017-18 Cavs are ~$14.5m over the lux threshold, so Gilbert is paying ~$45m-$65m to sustain a championship contender.

Heck the Lakers get $200m a year from their TV deal, which does not need to be shared with the league. Would they mind being in the repeater tax on-going at ~$15m over the threshold? I bet they don't mind.

So, it just goes back to that **** markets can't afford a contender. There is no one to blame when you steal a team and move to a **** market.

[FNQ]

OKC fans whining about the league screwing them, when the league conspired with Bennett to steal the team and screwed all Sonics fans.

Maybe Bennett shouldn't have lied and stole the team to a **** market. Should have known when you have a shallow (relatively) pocket and low revenue from a **** market, that means you cannot afford a contender.

OKC showed an ability to draw ticket-wise when the Hornets went there after Katrina.. and it was not about being able to afford it, its that their owner didn't want to pay. He absolutely could afford it, especially with the league's revenue sharing, and chose not to trailblaze into the repeater tax.

As a childhood and secondary Sonics fan, I dunno why I would blame OKC fans and somehow tie Bennett's actions to them. Just like I'm not going to hate Las Vegas Raiders' fans when that happens too. It wasn't their call.

But the Thunder sure have had bad timing as it relates to cap and tax rules. I wasn't aware of the rookie hold thing being postponed either, that really sucks for them. They should still be close to a max slot though.

[likashing]

its that their owner didn't want to pay. He absolutely could afford it,

(1) Being able to afford it while being cheap, and (2) cannot afford it at all, are the exact same thing to a team and its fans. Donald Sterling was worth $3b too, but notice how the Clippers' finance was controlled.

I don't blame OKC fans, I laugh at *those* that whine about being *slighted* by the league, and how it is difficult to run a team in a smaller market, given how they obtained the team and moved it to that market.

The league treated them like a little princess by helping them steal a team. Their owner chose to move it to their little market. They can whine about everything else, but not these stuff.