The Kevin Durant sweepstakes officially kick off at 12:01 a.m. on the morning of Friday, July 1, and the pre-madness positioning is in full swing. Already, Durant is reported to have set up meetings with six teams–the Thunder, Warriors, Spurs, Clippers, Heat and Celtics–and Knicks president Phil Jackson will likely lead a charge to make New York the seventh. However, another team appears to be ready to make a charge for the former MVP’s services: the Hawks.
Atlanta is having a unique offseason so far. Their main priority appears to be resigning current free agents Al Horford and Kent Bazemore, but they’ve broken up their backcourt–they shipped their longtime starting point guard, Jeff Teague, to Indiana to make way for Dennis Schroeder to be their PG of the future–and have quietly considered making a play for free agent center Dwight Howard a native of Atlanta.
Add Kevin Durant to that mix, and things get really interesting. Atlanta believes they have a chance should the free agent superstar grant them a meeting, especially considering Grant Hill, someone Durant has publicly idolized, is a member of their ownership group. Basketball wise, Schroeder, Kyle Korver, Bazemore, Horford/Howard and Paul Milsap isn’t exactly the kind of support teams like the Clippers, Warriors or Spurs could provide, but in the Eastern Conference, it might be enough to threaten LeBron‘s reign.
