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Par Pierre-Andréa Fraile | Journaliste sportif
Although the Spurs have long been rumored to be among the favorites to land Kevin Durant this summer, they are reportedly up against competition from four other teams. However, one of them, and not the least, would have no place in this list.
The deal seemed almost complete. For some insiders, it already was and was just waiting for an official announcement. In any case, the Spurs seemed to be in a very good position to welcome Kevin Durant in the coming weeks. On his way out of Phoenix, the winger-star had, after all, made his own choice to join San Antonio, giving the Texan franchise a distinct advantage in this soap opera.
In this rather favourable context for their team, some fans were understandably quick to anticipate the medium term and include the Slim Reaper in their projections. In fact, the tendency was for the latter to sign a new contract once he had moved on, and thus spend several years at Victor Wembanyama’s side. However, a recent intervention by Shams Charania has changed all that.
The battle to attract Kevin Durant already down to 4 teams?
Charania, one of the most influential journalists in the NBA world, whose reliability is almost unanimously recognized, doesn’t make the Spurs the only candidates for Durant’s arrival. In fact, he claims that five teams are on the lookout for Durant, including… the Knicks. Steve Popper of Newsday Sports, who specializes in New York franchise news, contradicted his illustrious pear on X :
Steve Popper: By the way, while the search for a new coach continues in New York, a league source has told me that despite recent reports – including one from GOAT on the matter – the Knicks are not among the teams interested in Durant.
Hard to know who to believe with all these different opinions.
As a reminder, the Knicks do seem capable of stirring up the market following their recent disappointment in the Eastern Conference Finals. Supposedly on the lookout for Giannis Antetokounmpo, they also have enough assets to make a nice offer to the Suns for KD. An offer that could include Karl-Anthony Towns, whose future in New York has appeared fragile of late.
It’s not clear, however, that the search for a new star is the priority for New York’s leaders at the moment. After the surprising dismissal of Tom Thibodeau, the search for a new coach seems to be monopolizing the front office’s attention, and rightly so. All the more so given that their requests to interview Chris Finch, Ime Udoka, Billy Donovan, Quin Snyder and Jason Kidd were recently turned down.
