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In our ongoing quest to bring you every morsel of Kevin Durant news, we must pass along this: the current Thunder star future Wizards forward will reportedly stay with Nike after it matched a massive Under Armour offer, according to ESPN's Marc Stein and Darren Rovell.
Under Armour, who owns about a quarter of one percent of the shoe market, made an offer to Durant for around $285 million over 10 years. The hope was that Durant could join Stephen Curry as a part of an up-and-coming brand that'd challenge Nike's huge reach. But at the last minute, it looks like Nike will exercise its right to match the offer, keep its star and work harder to market him even more.
This is the part where I admit that there's an obvious #KD2DC impact in this decision, yet I don't really know exactly what it is. Thunder fans were understandably worried that Durant going to Under Armour only would have pulled him closer to his hometown. At the same time, Durant can be marketed anywhere, so the impact of his shoe company may be overstated.
If anything, this might be good news. Had Durant signed with Under Armour, he could argue that affiliation, and not actually playing for the Wizards, is his way of staying connected to his hometown.
OK, fine, that's a stretch. My point: it's hard to know. Maybe others have better theories.