Warriors Will Be Kevin Durant's Second Free Agency Visit After Thunder

Oakland, CA -- The NBA champion is never determined in July. The Warriors have been able to claim a seasonal victory though by lining up the first meeting with soon to be free agent Kevin Durant after he meets with his current team, the Oklahoma City Thunder.

According to ESPN, the Golden State Warriors, San Antonio Spurs, and Durant's current team, the Oklahoma City Thunder, are the first three teams to secure in-person visits. Other teams likely to secure face to face visits are the Miami Heat, Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Clippers, according to Broussard.

For those Warriors fans salivating at the thought of Durant, Curry, and Thompkins on the floor at the same time, they'll be even happy to know they aren't alone.

According to Adrian Wojnarowski, who spoke about Durant's free agency process on his podcast The Vertical (via CSNBayarea.com):

"Here's the thing that's interesting about Golden State -- their players have been recruiting Kevin Durant all year. And it goes back to early in the season when the Thunder were struggling. And I don't know if Golden State saw them as a peer; I don't know that they saw them as a threat ... Kevin Durant, just like he was hearing from guys in Boston, Washington, different places -- he was hearing from guys on the Warriors about, 'Hey, you can come help take the pressure off of Steph Curry. We need you.' This is when they were running off win after win after win.

They had him on their mind. He's been on their mind. And it appealed to him. And some of it was text messages, it's a lot of that. But the communication with some of the players in Golden State and Kevin, that's just not just starting now."

As Warrior fans surely remember, Durant and the Thunder took the Warriors to the brink in the Western Conference Finals, before the Warriors fought back to advance to the NBA Finals (only to see LeBron do the same thing to them).

Isn't basketball fun?

According to Sporting News, NBA sources note that "the four-time scoring champ won’t uproot himself from Oklahoma City to go chase a title with a franchise that will need to make several other major moves for the 2014 MVP to reach his goal of winning his first NBA crown."

The Warriors, in many ways, are a prime candidate to land Durant, given he doesn't re-sign with the Thunder before they get a chance to meet with him.

As for winning a championship, maybe that's what keeping Durant from even visiting with the Lakers.

Sorry not sorry Lakers fans.

Photo courtesy of Keith Allison.