The NBA has a new super team.

Kevin Durant stunned the basketball world by agreeing to a contract with the Golden State Warriors. This decision ends a whirlwind weekend full of meetings with six teams, creating a four-headed monster in the Bay Area that will become one of the biggest stories in sports.

“The primary mandate I had for myself in making this decision was to have it based on the potential for my growth as a player – as that has always steered me in the right direction,” Durant wrote in announcing his decision on the Players’ Tribune. “But I am also at a point in my life where it is of equal importance to find an opportunity that encourages my evolution as a man: moving out of my comfort zone to a new city and community which offers the greatest potential for my contribution and personal growth. With this in mind, I have decided that I am going to join the Golden State Warriors.”

Over the past four days, Durant met first with the Oklahoma City Thunder, the only team he’s ever played for, followed by the Warriors, Spurs, Los Angeles Clippers, Boston Celtics and Miami Heat. After meeting with the Thunder at Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City Thursday – the day before free agency began – Durant flew to the Hamptons on Long Island and met with all six teams again over the weekend. The Warriors and Clippers came and went on Friday, followed by the Spurs and Celtics on Saturday and the Heat and then Thunder once again on Sunday.

Durant then settled in to make his decision. Once he did, Warriors general manager Bob Myers had to go to work to create enough cap space to allow Durant to come play in Oakland. Andrew Bogut will have to be traded, while the rights to restricted free agents Harrison Barnes and Festus Ezeli must be relinquished.

That won’t leave the Warriors with much “Strength in Numbers” – their motto as they won an NBA-record 73 games during the regular season and came within one win of a second straight championship last month – but it will provide them with an overwhelming strength in star power. Between Durant, two-time reigning league MVP Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, the Warriors have accumulated a level of star talent that dwarfs even what the Miami Heat were able to put together by combining LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in 2010.

Add in 2015 NBA Finals MVP Andre Iguodala and backup point guard Shaun Livingston, and the Warriors have an incredible six players at the top of its roster. Golden State will have plenty of work to do to fill out the rest of its roster – the Warriors have only one center, rookie Damian James, on the roster, with only other true big in 2015 first rounder Kevon Looney, who had surgery on both hips over the past 12 months.

But while Golden State won’t have much flexibility to add more, with only the $2.9 million room exception and minimum contracts left to fill the team out around its top six, that’s a problem all 30 NBA teams would happily sign up for having to try and solve.

Ever since Durant lost a hard-fought series in seven games to the Warriors in the Western Conference finals – with the Warriors escaping from a 3-1 deficit to win the series and advance to the Finals – it was widely expected he would decide to stay in Oklahoma City on a one year deal with a player option for a second, allowing him to have one more shot at a championship with the Thunder next season before heading into free agency alongside fellow superstar Russell Westbrook.


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