i believe it was ramona shelburne who reported last week that durant had already indicated to the organization his willingness to take a bit of a haircut on his deal, and take the "non-bird" exception rather than the full max.

it's only about a ~$4M difference for him but it's actually pretty huge, since it'll allow you guys to operate this offseason as a "cap-space" team rather than an "exception" team, giving you a lot more options on ways to keep guys like iggy and s dot. they can basically go over the cap and retain everybody, if they're willing to take that lux-tax hit.

also: i wouldn't be surprised if they bring in nene to replace zaza. just a hunch.