If Flag Football paid around six hundred and seventy-five thousand euros a month maybe Oklahoma City Thunder’s Kevin Durant would just play that professionally for the duration of the NBA Lockout. Nike can sponsor the flags, maybe chip in a little for the salaries, and Donald Trump can buy a team to relive his USFL glory years. Good idea?
No, okay. Time to look for other options then, which appears precisely what KD is doing at the moment. The one he’s apparently found to his liking looks to be in Germany too, playing basketball actually.
According to the website for the German BBL Club BBC Bayreuth, Kevin Durant’s group has been in serious discussions with the team for much of the last three weeks. Durant is reportedly asking for 675,000 euros per month, and the biggest hurdle the club is trying to clear at the moment is that of how to handle the insurance issue. Durant’s contract with the Thunder has five more years and about $86 million left on the deal.
The following is from David Hein, translated from the team’s website:
“BBC Bayreuth management confirmed on their website that they had in fact held negotiations with Durant’s people.
“The discretion with which we had been negotiating with Kevin Durant’s agents is now over with. The fact is that we have held serious negotiations for about three weeks with Kevin Durant’s agents, Aaron Goodwin and his partners in Europe,” said BBC Bayreuth’s general manager Manfred Schöttner on the club’s website on November 14, 2011.
Regarding the state of the negotiations, Schöttner said “an agreement in financial questions is very possible”. He also said the parties have talked about a possible time frame for Durant’s playing for Bayreuth.”
That monthly salary number Durant is said to be asking for is from a Spanish report found here, published over the weekend. The website Spox.com went on to say yesterday that a deal between KD and the German team could come as early as today too.
“According to a SPOX.com article, Durant’s agent has called the Beko BBL club out of the blue and both sides are in serious contract negotiations since. According to Bayreuth GM Manfred Schöttner, a decision could come as early as today or Wednesday.”
It’s worth noting that BBC Bayreuth is not a perennial power type club overseas, and is supposedly not even a team previously considered a playoff contender either. They probably will be if Durant shows up though.
The most recognizable American name on Bayreuth’s current rosteris former Villanova Wildcats guard Corey Stokes. In addition to Stokes, the other American born players include Tyler Smith, Brandon Hunter, Kevin Hamilton and Danny Gibson. I’m not sure if one of those guys would have to get cut in order to make room for Durant, but it wouldn’t really be too cool if they did. I’ll be following up on that should Durant actually sign with these guys.
