Oklahoma City Thunder fans may have been shocked on Monday when Kevin Durant announced he is leaving the team, but general manager Sam Presti saw it coming.
Durant personally called Presti minutes before the 27-year-old superstar revealed in a piece for The Players’ Tribune that he is signing with the Golden State Warriors. Presti says he was very prepared for what he was about to hear.
“When you do this long enough, 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,” the GM said, per Royce Young of ESPN.com.
It’s unclear when Durant made up his mind, but it must have been hard for him to meet with the Thunder twice if he already knew he was joining the Warriors. That would almost be like knowing you’re about break up with your girlfriend the next time you see her but having her call you five times before that to talk about all the fun you’re going to have together this weekend.
To his credit, Presti has had nothing but good things to say about Durant over the past 24 hours.
“I found out a few minutes before the media,” he said. “He called me with his agent and business manager, and we had a conversation. Kevin was great.”
Durant told Presti the same things he wrote when revealing his decision — that he wants to step outside his comfort zone and take on a new challenge. Some would argue that K.D. is doing the opposite of taking on a challenge, and one of Durant’s tweets from several years ago shows how much he has changed.
At the end of the day, Durant went about his decision the right way. There was no special on ESPN and he didn’t have his agent do the dirty work for him by calling his former team. The decision is a tough one for Presti, the Thunder and their fans to swallow, but you can’t blame a guy for chasing a championship when rings have become the measuring stick for success in professional sports.
