Joe Lacob offered a new theory about the departure of Kevin Durant from the Golden State Warriors during a recent podcast with Tim Kawakami.
“This is really an odd thing to say, but him leaving when he did may have turned out to be the right thing,” Lacob said. “For him, certainly, I want him to have a good career, enjoy himself. He felt it was obviously not the right thing to stay. He wasn’t quite comfortable. I can’t explain why. I don’t know why. But for whatever reason, he moved on. But he wouldn’t have played this last year. He was injured. We would’ve had a huge payroll as a team. Maybe this is the best thing. We were able to start a rebuild a little bit earlier than we otherwise might have. Maybe it’ll prove to be the right thing in the long run that that occurred. I’m an optimist. I always look at things at what’s the positive in the situation. Yes, he left. That’s negative. But the positive is we got a chance to move forward quicker and to move into the next phase of what we’re doing.”
The Warriors acquired D'Angelo Russell as part of the Kevin Durant move and then converted Russell into Andrew Wiggins and the first round pick in 2021 of the Minnesota Timberwolves.