The Warriors collected their 2018 championship rings on Tuesday night, before beating the Thunder in their opening contest. The whole thing was a circus, with the gaudiest baubles venture capital money could buy. Owner Joe Lacob was flashing his pearly whites all over Oracle Arena, likely reminiscing about his last sleepless night with the Larry O'Brien Trophy.
But in between all the pomp and circumstance, Lacob decided he'd try and get a committment from two-time Finals MVP Kevin Durant, who has a player option he'll likely exercise this summer to again become a free agent.
It was a joke, we think, but there's a kernel of truth in every joke. Durant's laugh as Lacob pantomimed re-signing appeared slightly pained. It's similar to the discomfited mirth elicited when your general manager roasts you at the championship parade following your second consecutive Finals MVP.
Maybe, at that precise moment, basking in the glow of his team's success (which he considers solely his own doing), Lacob realized something: the Warriors move into a new arena for the 2019-20 season, across the Bay where the blue collar riffraff of the "We Believe" era likely won't be able to afford transportation to the game, let alone tickets. Durant's presence would significantly smooth that transition, even if the team already had three homegrown all-stars and a 73-win season to their name before Durant's titanic arrival two years ago. Or maybe Lacob was just having fun and KD didn't think anything of it. It's probably the latter.
We're all left to speculate these days, while secretly hoping, in the interest of breaking up the annoying hegemony at the top each June, Durant goes elsewhere to improve upon his legacy and make each season's ending something other than predestined.
