For a brief period leading up to the February mid-season trade deadline, it appeared as if a blockbuster reunion between Kevin Durant and the Golden State Warriors was on the cards.
The Warriors and Suns were both on board, but unfortunately Durant wasn't as the 2x Finals MVP blocked a move back to his former team. Over six months on and Durant's brutal snub now looks even worse, particularly with Golden State continuing their free agency stalemate with young forward Jonathan Kuminga.
Warriors missed their opportunity to trade Jonathan Kuminga
According to Kuminga's agent Aaron Turner during an appearance on the Hoop Collective with ESPN's Brian Windhorst and Anthony Slater, the Warriors weren't motivated to get an extension done last summer because it would have limited their ability to trade the 22-year-old during the season.
“That poison pill provision that would have said, hey, if you trade them out, that team has to take them back at 25, 26 salary. They would have no chance to get a Kevin Durant like they almost did last year with JK being the centerpiece," Turner said. "So that was the choice they made. They didn't want to do a deal. Again, no one was upset about that.”
A poison pill contract refers to a player in their fourth year who has signed an extension off their rookie contract. They become almost impossible to trade during the season because the outgoing salary is still only the fourth and final year of their rookie deal, but the incoming salary to the team they go to is the average of that fourth year and the extension.
So, according to Turner, the Warriors wanted to retain their flexibility and opportunity to trade Kuminga before February's deadline. The problem is that when that time came, Golden State missed it and are now left with this drawn out free agency process with Kuminga which everyone is getting sick and tired of.
More specifically, they missed the opportunity because Durant rejected them. Kuminga would have been part of that deal and would have headed to the Suns, with the pacific rival having since shown strong interest in the former seventh overall pick this summer, only for the Warriors to reject any sign-and-trade proposals.
In a roundabout way we can attribute some of the blame for this free agency frustration on Durant, even if it's still largely on Golden State who have had multiple other opportunities to trade Kuminga throughout his four years with the franchise to date.
To make matters worse, Durant has since been traded to the Houston Rockets this offseason who now appear one of the top forces in the Western Conference after losing to the Warriors in the first-round of the playoffs.