Clippers Free Agency: Kevin Durant ‘blown away’ in meeting

The Los Angeles Clippers have met with Kevin Durant, and made a presentation that reportedly “blew away” the biggest star of NBA free agency.

Kevin Durant‘s NBA free agency meetings are well underway and he’s already met with the Oklahoma City Thunder, Golden State Warriors and most recently, the Los Angeles Clippers. Reports have emerged that each meeting has “gone well”, whatever that actually means. Sources close to teams will always say their meeting was a success, and regardless of who gives reporters their pieces of information, there’s no way to measure exactly how “well” something went.

But seeing as that’s all we have to go on, we’ll have to take into account everything we can about the Clippers’ pitch to Durant.

There are some obvious positives that we do know about, though. Except for Chris Paul, who was unable to attend as he’s away on family vacation (he has still talked to Durant over the last week and made a pitch over the phone), the Clippers sent in Doc Rivers, Steve Ballmer, the recently promoted Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations Lawrence Frank, Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan.

Jordan, who has been a friend of Durant since 10th grade, and Griffin played large roles in the meeting, according to ESPN’s Arash Markazi.

The further indication of how the meeting went came from ESPN’s Chris Broussard (as always, take that as you will, but Ramona Shelburne, Marc Stein and Markazi all contributed to the report, too), who reported that the meeting lasted four hours and Durant was “blown away” by the team’s pitch and vision:

"Kevin Durant and the Los Angeles Clippers met for approximately four hours Friday night in the Hamptons, and sources close to the situation say Durant was “blown away” by the Clippers’ presentation…According to a source, Durant was incredibly impressed by the vision and direction of the Clippers and made a strong connection with those at the meeting."

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The best part apart the “blown away” comment is that other reports specify it came from Durant’s camp, and was not simply a positive remark from the Clippers’ side of the meeting (as Sam Amick of USA Today Sports reported).

The Golden State Warriors met with Durant for around two and a half hours and the Oklahoma City Thunder (who had the first meeting on Thursday) met for around five hours, so if you want to compare, the Clippers didn’t do too bad in keeping him entertained based on the reports.

From selling him on their intended lineup of a new Big 4, countless financial details, and what the Clippers believe is in their future, they managed to keep Durant for an awfully long time.

Thankfully, this wondering and speculation may all be over very soon, as Ben Bolch of The Los Angeles Times reported.

While the length of the meeting, the attendance of both Griffin and Jordan, and the reported success of the pitch are all positives, it really is impossible to say whether it has all done anything to alter Durant’s decision. The Thunder are still seen as the heavy favorites, and there’s no way of knowing if the Clippers have him reconsidering or not.

As ESPN included in their report, a longtime friend of Durant said to Marc J. Spears that “his decision is 90 percent made” to stay. Although, that comment did come before the Clippers’ meeting, so fans can hope that percentage has suddenly plummeted in their favor.

Next: Magic sign Jeff Green on a one-year, $15 million deal

So, now, we wait and hope.