FAIRFAX, Va. -- Nothing is official yet when it comes to Kevin Durant in regards to where he'll play next season, but the Wizards are on the outside looking in while the forward surveys his options outside of the Oklahoma City Thunder. John Wall understands why the hottest free agent this summer likely won't come play in his hometown or meet with team officials to discuss.
"A lot of people will be devastated. But at the end of the day he never promised us anything," Wall said to CSNmidatlantic.com on Sunday during the final day of his camp at Fairfax High School, before departing for his offseason home in Los Angeles. "Every day, everybody said KD-to-DC, coming to our games wearing all the Kevin Durant stuff, he didn’t like it at that time because you should cheer for the team that you got. That might sway him."
Durant made no secret of his disdain for what he perceived as a disrespect to Wall, a three-time All-Star, and Bradley Beal. They'd won 44 and 46 games in 2014 and '15 and got the Wizards to the conference semifinals in consecutive seasons. If not for Wall's broken wrist a year ago, they were in good position to advance to the East finals. Though that's still not a championship, it represented incredible progress for a franchise that had been on a six-year postseason drought.
Then came the 41-41 season, a players-only meeting for a team with an identity crisis, an injury rash that led to the firing of the longtime head athletic trainer and the firing of coach Randy Wittman.
"It’s his heart and his decision if he wants to meet with us," Wall said. "If he feels like he can win a championship here, so be it. If not, he probably won’t come. The way this season went might play into it. ... I think it’s early (in the process). Everybody knew the teams he was going to meet with early on, Warriors, Spurs, but after that you got to figure it out. But if you don’t have a shot you have to move on."
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