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Damn good for Gordon

Apparently, they got engaged after five months of dating when he was 23 and she was mere months out of high school.

Apparently KD took a paycut so owner doesnt pay luxury tax

Definitely the most beta human being. Lol him helping billionaire saving money

Not really. It's also not about getting his boys paid it's about keeping an unfairly good team that was only able to be assembled due to a one time cap anomaly.

Not really. Yes it saves them money but it was more to allow them to bring back Iguodala/Livingston since being in the luxury tax would have prevented their ability to do so.

I read that only a few millions cut would have allowed livingston and iggy signings. The rest is just to save luxury tax

If that's true the player's union should absolutely be getting involved and preventing him from doing it.

Nah that's why it's awesome because these guys care and are washed up old guys. Stephen Jackson the best

What can the players union do?

I'm sure they would like everyone to take as much $ as possible but they can't really do anything about it. It's within the rules.

KD obviously is acting against his own financial self-interest, but it would be hard to argue that he is doing something that is likely to harm other players financially.

What is the argument? That he is setting a non-binding precedent that other mega stars will feel compelled to follow? That seems like a stretch.

The player's union prevented A-Rod from taking less money in 2003 to go to Boston. I don't know if NBPA has same power but what Durant is doing goes directly against something the union fought for and potentially made other concessions for.

Why this is dangerous is because if Durant would put them 5M over lux, he could officially take 5M less and get handed a briefcase with 7.5M in it by the owners. Durant wins 2.5M, owners save 2.5M.

Obviously highly doubtful that this is happening here but I would be surprised if this hasn't happened because of many players being all Antoine Walker and many owners are massive nits.

Whole thing is a joke and if they're within the rules with their technicalities then I would make life as unpleasant as possible for them with my own technicalities if I'm the NBA because they're ruining my thing.

It's just a totally different situation. A-rod wanted to restructure his contract to go to the Red Sox, that was what the MLBPA was against. They were afraid if he took less $ in exchange for being traded then this would become the norm.

They weren't against him taking less in free agency, that happens all the time. And the NBA has a set max so there isn't really any need for guys to keep setting higher and higher precedents as far as pay goes.

Durant is just taking slightly less money. No different than what LeBron/Bosh/Wade did to go to Miami.

If any team does this, it's gotta be the Spurs. But I doubt it happens.

Duncan, Green, Kawhi all took less than market value over the years.

Actually the 1 time that people in the media and around the league thought it happened was when Kirilenko signed with the Nets for like 3mill and he could've got a lot more elsewhere. If Prokorhov hands him 5 million on a yacht off the coast of Russia then no one ever finds out.

The payroll isn't even completed yet and we don't know what amount was needed to keep liv/iggy. to go ahead and assume that the money he passed on was a gift to the owner seems reaching

GS is going to be a luxury tax team this year. So any dollar amount less that he takes is a dollar less towards the luxury tax.

So it is a decent sized savings for the owners.

Re the Heatles

Those guys took less money because there was a finite amount under the rules they could take and be able to keep Chalmers and sign Miller etc.

I don't think anyone faults Durant for taking the initial lesser amount so that they would be able to bring back both Livingston and Iguodala. It's the taking less to only avoid taxes which we fault him for. They will have a new stadium in one of the most afluent places in the world. Teams like the Bulls still have extra millions of fans around the world because of their dynasty in the 90s. The Warriors can afford to pay their players to keep one of the best teams of all time together.

The owner wasn't going to pay unlimited taxes to retain Iggy/Liv anyway. We don't know up to what amount he'd have paid so we'll never really know how much this was to keep iggy/liv or give the owner a break. People are just guessing really

That's true. If Durant doesn't take less then Liv is likely gone.

They had birds for both he didn't need to do anything to get them signed.

Lol Katie.

If he doesn't take less then the owners probably just don't re-sign Livingston because of the luxury tax is the point.

Durant is doing the owners a solid, but if he doesn't then GS doesn't have their entire core from last year.

Correct. There is no way to completely disentangle retaining Iggy and Livingston from payment of luxury tax unless we somehow knew that GS ownership would have been willing to pay much more in luxury tax to retain them. It's impossible to know where the inflection point was.

KD gonna get himself 4 rangz. Helps his legacy long term with NBA casual fan.

Yeah winning finals MVP every year is worth something in dollar value as well in KD's case.