The departure of Kevin Durant was ‘a good thing’ for the Golden State Warriors, according to team owner Joe Lacob.
Durant left the Warriors in the summer of 2019 and signed a four-year contract with the Brooklyn Nets.
“This is really an odd thing to say, but him leaving when he did may have turned out to be the right thing. 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,” Lacob told Tim Kawakami of The Athletic, per Anthony Slater.
