The history of Kevin Durant to D.C. rumors

Durant was born in Washington, D.C., grew up in nearby Seat Pleasant and attended high school at Montrose Christian School in Rockville, Md. He’s remained a prominent part of the community even after leaving to play college ball at Texas before joining the Thunder.

The calls for Durant to sign in D.C. have gotten so loud that some have wondered whether the city’s excitement could scare the star forward away. Not everyone agrees with that idea, though, and many Wizards fans will happily continue extolling the virtues of “KD-to-DC” until the summer of 2016 finally arrives.

But why are some Wizards fans so convinced that Durant is coming, other than the hometown connection? There are a few reasons.

It took a long time to get here, but the Wizards are in an excellent position to sell Durant. Assuming no major changes in the next year, the team’s combination of cap space and young talent should add to an already tempting hometown pitch.

For years, the Wizards have been careful to add long-term salary to the books that’d jeopardize the Durant push. The most prominent example: signing veteran Paul Pierce to a two-year contract last summer rather than retain starting small forward Trevor Ariza, who signed a four-year contract with Houston.

The money isn’t much of a differentiating factor because no team, with the exception of OKC, can offer Durant a five-year deal, but those high-quality teammates will surely help. Wall might be the best point guard in the Eastern Conference now, Beal is one of the top up-and-coming shooting guards in the game and Gortat is a steady veteran big man who should remain effective for a few more years.

Money and winning will undoubtedly be important to Durant as he decides on his future. The Wizards should be able to offer both of those things.

David Adkins isn’t an actual relative of Durant’s, but the man is close enough to the Thunder star that KD calls him “family.” So when the Wizards decided to hire Adkins, an assistant coach at Montrose Christian during Durant’s time there, as a player development coach over the summer, the move understandably turned some heads.

It’s not certain that Washington brought in Adkins because of his connections to Durant, but that relationship is difficult to ignore. Reporters asked KD about the hire back in July at Team USA camp, and he responded positively, saying, “I support him. That’s family.”

When asked whether the hire could’ve been part of a recruiting effort, Durant shied away from a serious response.

“I don’t think that,” Durant said. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m just happy for Coach Adkins that he got that job. He deserves it. He works extremely hard.”

If Durant wasn’t seriously considering a hometown move in a couple summers, one figures he would simply come out and say that. However, the past year has seen several instances of Durant more or less reinforcing the possibility that he could return to D.C.

Then came these comments on the same day:

Take out that last little bit on OKC, and that sounds an awful lot like a player who would love to take the court for his hometown team. There are a variety of ways that Durant could’ve shut down the possibility of signing in D.C. when reporters first brought it up over the summer. Instead, he told reporters he loved playing there, though he was also careful to praise his current situation in Oklahoma City.

Around the same time, Wall was openly praising the effort to lure Durant to Washington:

“He’s like an older brother to me,” Wall said. “He’s happy to see the things I’m doing and what I’m doing for the city of DC, especially since that’s where he’s from. That’s a big honor to me and an honor to him, so we enjoy it. We enjoy our conversations. We enjoy hanging out. We have our fun times.”

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“To be with one of the top two best players in the league, in my opinion, who can score at will and do whatever he wants (would be great),” Wall said. “You could have a Big Three with me, him and Brad (Beal), and I feel like that’s what you need to win a championship now is a Big Three. It’d be great to have him back home.”

That all put the KD-to-DC hype into overdrive, and it’s stayed there throughout this season. Grantland’s Zach Lowe wrote in November that some teams were already settling into the idea of OKC vs. D.C. for Durant’s upcoming free agency:

Some teams are optimistic it will be open season, and others have heard rumblings that Durant has already made it known it will come down to the Thunder and Wizards. Nobody really knows.

That final sentence is undeniable, but the good news for the Wizards is that they’re clearly in the mix for Durant’s services once he’s available. The bad news is that won’t happen until the summer of 2016, so get ready for another 18 months of this stuff.