Can you believe it's been a decade since Kevin Durant joined Golden State? We officially reached NBArmageddon when he joined forces with the winningest regular season team in NBA history, within inches of going back-to-back. Even crazier, the Utah Jazz inadvertently factored into how that situation played out.
First off, why bring this up? Besides the fact that it's already been 10 years, it's the fact that this Dion Waiters clip about Durant's free agency made the rounds a few days ago (even though he said all of this over a year ago on "Real Talk With MJ."
Dion Waiters recalls being up 3-1 on GS in 2016 on OKC & KD joining them
โ ๐๐ง๐ (@TheWestbrookEra) September 6, 2026
โWe was in the WCF up 3-1 against GS. Tricked it off bro. Weโre supposed to went to the Finals against Cleveland. I feel like we wouldโve beat Cleveland. Kev left went to GS. Before that (KD) text me andโฆ pic.twitter.com/RYzkI9YgaN
What's done is done, but for obvious reasons, OKC really tried to bring back Durant in 2016, but part of the reason why they couldn't because Durant didn't like their team makeup. That roster featured infamous Jazz lottery pick Enes Freedom.
Because Utah saw no use for him (thanks to the rising Rudy Gobert), they traded him to OKC, which believed he could help. Portland then forced their hand by signing Freedom to a four-year, $70 million contract sheet in free agency. The Thunder wanted to show Durant they wanted to win, so they were stuck between a rock and a hard place.
But this ruined everything in 2016
Freedom wasn't the only mid-season acquisition OKC extended in 2015, as they did the same with Kyle Singler, who they acquired in the same deal. Neither of those two factored into the Thunder nearly toppling the Warriors in the WCF.
When OKC was trying to convince Durant to stick around, they reportedly tried to trade Freedom and Singler to make room for Al Horford. They had already made a pretty valiant effort by trading Serge Ibaka for Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis' draft rights, but they knew that Horford was the key to convincing Durant to continue donning a Thunder jersey.
Narrator: they didn't pull it off.
The Thunder couldn't find a taker for Freedom. Well, it's more likely there were takers, but it would have come at a hefty price. In other words, draft assets. Freedom could put up numbers, but because he couldn't keep it up on the defensive side (to put it lightly), teams didn't want to pay a good price for that. Not without some compensation.
OKC may have very well convinced Durant to come back had they gotten the cap room to sign Horford that summer, but because that trade with Utah involving Freedom and Singler (Singler wasn't paid nearly as much as Freedom, but was a long-term deal), they were out of options that summer.
Just as the Jazz have factored into the Warriors' downfall going forward, they factored into their rise to a basketball supernova 10 years ago. Even if they didn't mean to.
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