Golden State Warriors' Kevin Durant (35) celebrates on stage after winning Game 5 of the NBA Finals at Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, June 12, 2017. The Golden State Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 129-120 to win the NBA Championship. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)

By **Tim Kawakami
** | tkawakami@bayareanewsgroup.com
| Bay Area News Group

PUBLISHED: July 4, 2017 at 11:21 am
| UPDATED: July 4, 2017 at 2:10 pm

No, I did not expect to be writing a Kevin Durant July 4 manifesto for the second straight year, but so it goes and here I go…

Yesterday’s news-breaker: Durant has agreed to take $9.6M less than his maximum potential salary for next season to re-sign another one-plus-one deal with the Warriors starting at around $25M, which is also $6.8M less than was necessary for the Warriors to fit him under their own cap mechanics.

Generally, this is the ultimate indication that Durant believes that the Warriors fulfilled every promise made to him in that meeting in the Hamptons last July (which led to his signing announcement exactly a year ago), and this is the fulfillment of everything Durant implicitly promised to them.

不，我没有想到会连续第二年在7月4号写下凯文-杜兰特的声明，但事情就是这样，然后开始吧。

昨天的头条新闻：杜兰特同意与勇士重新签订一个新的1+1合同，起薪大概在2500万美元，比他下赛季最高可以获得的薪水要少了960万美元，也比勇士在工资帽下为了保留他而需要支付的薪水少了680万美元。

一般来说，这就意味着杜兰特相信勇士完成了去年7月在汉普顿的会面中给他做出的每一个保证（正是整整一年前的这个会面促成了杜兰特与勇士签约），同时这也意味着杜兰特在履行对勇士暗中的约定。

They will work together. They will share, they will all make plenty of money, they will have fun. They will win.

And they will keep this together, for as long as possible, as practically as possible, presuming all sides (including ownership) keep operating in good faith.

Which has happened, and this Durant give-back is the latest and largest example of it.

(The scope of it is what’s most surprising, of course, since we already knew he wasn’t going to demand the $34.6M max in order to let the Warriors maintain their Bird Rights on Iguodala and Livingston.)

他们能一起打球，他们能分享球，他们都会挣很多钱，他们会很开心。他们会赢球。

并且他们会尽力的保持这个阵容，只要依旧可行，假设每一方（包括老板）都对此有信心。

如今这已经发生了，而且杜兰特的让步也是目前最新而且最有力的例子。

（当然，在我们已经知道为了保留伊戈达拉和利文斯顿的鸟权他不会要求一份3460万美元的顶薪的情况下，最令人吃惊的就是降薪的幅度。）

And the fact that the extra give-back almost certainly led directly to owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber spending an additional $6-7M combined per year on Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston’s new deals is the proof of it, with potentially more extra spending coming in the next few days.

The line connecting Durant’s lesser money to larger payroll issues… is the part that gets people angry — well, of course, anything having to do with the Warriors or Durant specifically just seems to drive people insane, no matter what it is.

The NBA makes a lot of money because fans personalize every decision by every player and every team, but the shrieking on Durant — no matter what he does, when he does it, how he does it — is just way out of scale. Way, way out of scale.

并且事实上这个额外的回馈肯定会直接给到老板乔-拉克布和彼得-古伯，他们在伊戈达拉和利文斯顿的新合同上每年会多花600-700万美元，在未来的日子还可能会更多。

而杜兰特拿更少的钱和勇士薪资问题之间的关系也就是为什么有些人会生气——好吧，当然，任何事只要和勇士或者和杜兰特有关就会让一些人精神失常，无论是什么事。

NBA赚很多钱是因为球迷把每个球员和球队做的决定都个人化了，但针对于杜兰特决定的反应都太过夸张了，无论他做了什么，无论他何时做，或者他怎么做。太、太过于夸张了。

Oh well.

I look at things practically, however, and that always helps me in times like these, especially viewing Durant moves when so many others are using kaleidoscope vision on him.

In a real-world view, all of the work-together-win-together-make-money-together stuff is exactly what this is.

It doesn’t mean any of these Warriors guys are saints or martyrs. They’re all being rewarded quite lucratively. They live great lives.

And the owners, executives, coaches and players also are in a partnership here at a level that you rarely see — they understand this special moment in time and they are reacting to it.

It might not last another season, it might last five seasons, I don’t know. But it’s the environment now, and Durant is reacting to it. So are Lacob and Guber.

If you don’t like or believe that, that’s OK with me. Your call, just as all these decisions are individual calls by each of the Warriors’ principals.******

嗯，好吧。

我再来实际的看一下杜兰特的决定，在类似的时候这经常能帮到我，尤其是在如此多的人用各式各样的眼光看杜兰特时。

以一个现实世界的角度，这也就正是所谓的一起打球——一起赢球——一起赚钱。

并不是说这些勇士球员是圣人或烈士。他们得到了很多利益。他们活得很好。

而老板、总裁、教练和球员同样在一个合作关系中，他们之间的关系是你很难看到的，他们及时理解了这个特殊的时刻并做出了各自的应对。

这可能无法持续下去，也可能保持接下来的5个赛季，我不知道。但这就是现在的氛围，并且杜兰特给出了自己的应对。拉克布和古伯也一样。

如果你不喜欢或者不相信，对我来说无所谓。这是你的决定，就像这些每一个决定都是每一个勇士人做出的决定。

OK, to Durant specifically…

His salary for 2017-2018 will be around $25M, which is of course not a pittance, but is several levels lower than the $34.6M max starting salary that Stephen Curry will receive in his new 5-year extension and the $31.8M salary (20% raise from last season) that Durant could’ve received from the Warriors as a non-Bird Rights player.

It’s even lower than the $26.5M Durant received from the Warriors last season.

好，杜兰特的情况是...

他在17-18赛季的薪水大概是2500万美元，当然不是一个小数目，但比库里新5年合同的起薪3460万美元要低了好几级，也比他作为一个非鸟权球员可以从勇士拿到的3180万美元（上赛季20%的涨薪）低了好几级。

而且这甚至比他去年从勇士领到的薪水2650万美元还要少。

And look at this practically:

-Owners who are going way over the luxury-tax line have the right to suggest that there’s a limit to how much tax they want to pay, and the Warriors are already way over the $119M luxury-tax line for this coming season.

-Let’s guess that Lacob and GM Bob Myers maybe had a final-level goal of keeping their payroll near or at $139.999M, just short of triggering a 375% tax on every additional dollar, which, if it went no higher than that, would still produce a $45M tax bill… and a total payroll cost of $185M.

That’s almost double last season’s payroll of about $94M, by the way. The Warriors were in the luxury tax two years ago, but dipped below last year to fit Durant into cap room.

-Players can decide what to do from there. If Durant knew that the Warriors were up against a self-imposed $185M payroll bill when they were negotiating with Iguodala and Livingston, and that he could get them more money if he took less… then that’s his own process.

再来实际的看一下：

-对于工资已经超了奢侈线很多的老板来说，他们有权利说明他们愿意付出的税是有一个限制的，并且勇士在接下来的赛季已经超过1.19亿美元的奢侈税线非常多。

-那么假设拉克布和总经理鲍勃-迈尔斯可能有一个将总工资控制在1.39999亿美元的最终目标，来避免触发375%的奢侈税，但即便他们没有超过这个值，依旧会有大概4500万美元的奢侈税，加上薪资总花销在1.85亿美元。

这也就大概是去年球队总工资9400万美元的两倍。勇士队在两年前曾交过奢侈税，但在去年加入杜兰特之后依然保持在奢侈税下之下。

-球员可以决定他们要做什么。如果杜兰特知道勇士在和伊戈达拉以及利文斯顿商讨新的合约时将会面临一个1.85亿美元的支出并且如果他拿得更少会给球队更多的资本...那么这就是他自己的事情了。

It’s not your process. It’s not even Joe Lacob’s process. It’s Durant’s, in this real-world situation of budgets and limits and decisions.

Durant had the right to negotiate for every dollar possible, of course, and he had the right to tell Lacob that if Iguodala and Livingston needed more money, he’d take less.

Again: Real-world budgets, with an owner who is already doubling the payroll costs. Durant easily could’ve told Lacob and Lacob to pay for Iguodala and Livingston themselves, period. Easily, easily. He didn’t.******

这不是你的事情，这甚至不是乔拉克布的事情。这是杜兰特的，在这个充满了预算、限制与决定的现实世界。

杜兰特拥有去争取他可以获得的每一分钱的权利，当然，他也有权告诉拉克布如果伊戈达拉和利文斯顿需要更多钱，他可以拿少一些。

再次强调：现实世界的预算下，这是一个已经付了两倍工资的老板。杜兰特可以轻松地告诉拉克布和古伯他们只能依靠他们自己来付伊戈达拉和利文斯顿的工资，句号。轻松地。轻松地。他没这么做。

-That doesn’t mean either thing had to be agreed to.

Durant could insisted on the $31.8M and nobody would’ve criticized a bit. (OK, it’s Durant, so the Wild Durant Bashers would’ve found a way to criticize him, but nobody sane would’ve criticized him.)

Lacob could’ve said that even if Durant took less, that wouldn’t necessarily mean that Iguodala and Livingston were worth $48M over three years and $20M over three years (two guaranteed years at $8M and a $2M guarantee for the third), respectively.

But both tacit or explicit things were agreed to and Durant took less while Iguodala and Livingston got more, and maybe there’s more coming with roster adds.

-这并不意味着下面两件事情中任何一件需要被同意。

杜兰特可以坚持3180万美元的薪水并且没有人可以有一点的意见（好吧，这是杜兰特，疯狂的杜兰特黑子可能能找到一个角度来批评他，但没有正常人会批评他。）

拉克布可以说即使杜兰特拿得更少了，也不意味着伊戈达拉和利文斯顿分别在接下来的三年价值4800万美元和2000万美元（两年800万保障合同和第三年200万保障）。

但这两件心照不宣或明显的事情都被同意了，杜兰特拿了更少的薪水而伊戈达拉和利文斯顿拿了更多，并且随着轮转球员的加入可能会更多。

-If Durant didn’t want to give up the money, he had every right not to do it.

The Warriors are incredibly profitable. Durant has made a lot of money. This was his call and he was under no obligation to take a dollar less than he could’ve negotiated.

He certainly deserves it. But in a league with salary limits, and knowing that he still qualifies for the super-max next season (after he declines his player-option next July, as he did this year), then Durant had every right and was smart to weigh every right and how it affects his teammates.

-如果杜兰特不想放弃薪水，他有绝对的权利这么做。

勇士正在赚钱。杜兰特也赚了很多钱。这是他的决定并且他没有任何义务放弃他可以获得的每一分钱。

他值得这么多。但在一个有工资帽的联盟，并且知道他在下赛季依旧符合超级顶薪（在他明年拒绝执行球员选项之后，今年也一样），那么他有作出所有选择的权利并足够聪明地权衡了所有权利以及对队友的影响。

Is he saving Lacob and Guber money? Yes, Durant is literally saving them money.

But it’s within budgeted allotments, and it’s not like Lacob and Guber are cheaping out on anybody or anything — they’re making a giant profit, but they’re also set to pay one of the largest payroll bills in NBA history.******

To make sure they could fit Iguodala and Livingston within those terms and that extravagant budget, Durant gave back some of what he could’ve demanded in the short-term.

他在为拉克布和古伯省钱么？是的，杜兰特就是在为他们省钱。

但这是在预算分配以内的，并不是说拉克布和古伯在任何人和任何事上省钱了。他们正在获取巨大的利润，但他们也即将为NBA历史上最大的工资单之一买单。

为了确保他们可以将伊戈达拉和利文斯顿留下，杜兰特放弃了短期内他可以获得一些金钱。

I’m not sure why this angers people.

• So, you ask: Why wouldn’t Curry take less too?

That’s an easy one: First, as I have repeatedly said in relation to Durant, great players are under no obligation to ever accept a cut-rate salary. Durant chose to. There was no reason for Curry to do this, specifically in relation to this situation because…

-The Warriors had Curry’s full Bird Rights, which means they could pay him anything without respect to the salary cap. (That is parallel to the Warriors being able to pay Durant anything up to $31.8M. He took less.)

-Also, Durant has made approximately $135M in NBA salary in his career so far.

-Curry has made approximately $56M, thanks to being massively below market-rate the last four years.

我不确定为什么这让一些人生气。

• 如果你问：为什么库里不也拿少一点？

这很容易：首先，就像我在杜兰特相关的事情中说过的很多次的那样，伟大的球员没有义务去接受一个打折的薪水，杜兰特选择这么做。库里没有理由去这么做，尤其是考虑到如下的情况...

-勇士有库里的鸟权，也就是说他们可以不考虑工资帽的情况下付他薪水。（相对的就是勇士可以付给杜兰特最多3180万美元，杜兰特少拿了）

-并且，杜兰特职业生涯到目前为止赚了大概1.35亿美元。

-库里赚了大约5600万美元，由于过去四年的合同极大的低于市场价。

If you argue that hey, these players have huge shoe deals and all kinds of other outside income, why not just take less and less salary to help the team pay for other players…

I’d point out that you could say the same thing about NBA owners, who actually make the direct profit off of the talents of those players.

It’s a give and take, as are all negotiations in the real world of massively profitable endeavors.

如果你说这些球员都有巨大的球鞋合同，还有各种其他的收入，为什么不少拿一些帮助球队签下其他的球员。

我会说这些对NBA老板们也是一样的，他们才是真正从这些球员的天赋中直接赚钱的人。

这是一个互相让步，就像现实世界里高利润的经营的所有谈判一样。

All sides have earned the right to negotiate — or give-back — what and when they want.

The Durant give-back isn’t unique in NBA or sports history, either. Tom Brady has done it throughout his NFL career. Several Spurs stars have done it repeatedly.

Derek Carr did it in a limited way with his new Raiders deal, and was lauded.

I don’t know why this specific case is the one people want to fight over, or why they want to demand rules changes because of just this, but I guess it’s Durant and people just want to fight if his name is brought up.

各个方面都有谈判或者放弃的权利，关于他们想要什么以及何时想要。

杜兰特的这个让步在NBA或者体育历史中并不是独一无二的，NFL的汤姆-布雷迪整个生涯都在这么干。有几个马刺的球星也在不断地这么干。

德里克-卡尔在他与Raiders的新合同中也这么干了，他被称赞了。

所以我就不明白为什么杜兰特的这个事人们要吵来吵去，或者为什么他们仅仅因为杜兰特就要求修改需求条款，我猜因为这是杜兰特，而人们看到他的名字之后就想争吵。

• All this maneuvering to try to avoid giving players the right to put together and maintain super-teams… has only ended up making it easier.

And* encouraging* it.

I keep arguing this and the evidence keeps piling up.

• 所有试图让球员放弃组建并维持超级球队的努力...最终都使得这一切更容易。

并不断促使这些出现。

我一直这么说并且不断有证据支撑我的观点。

In a league with salary limits, the less-attractive teams have to give the max-deals to their own best players, even if their own best players aren’t at the top-10/20/30 level.

For instance, last July, Memphis had to pay Mike Conley, Jr., the max as he was coming up for an extension, or else why would he stay?

Problem: Conley is a very good and valuable player, but he’s not close to a top-10 player, and he’s currently now making $3.5M more than Durant because Conley had the leverage on Memphis last July and Memphis had to pay him the max because who else were they going to get for that number?

在一个有薪水限制的联盟，最没有吸引力的球队不得不把它的顶薪给队中最好的球员，即使他们最好的球员并不在前10/20/30的水平上。

例如，去年7月，孟菲斯不得不在迈克-康利续约时提供一份顶薪合同，不然他为什么要留下来呢？

问题：康利是一个很好且有价值的球员，但他根本不是前10的水平，现在他正赚着比杜兰特多350万美元的薪水，因为他与孟菲斯谈判时有筹码，而孟菲斯不得不给他一份顶薪，不然谁还能打出他给出的数据？

Nobody. That’s what salary-limits do: They shrink the range of salaries, especially at the top, which means that very good players make essentially the same as the greatest players and while that isn’t perfect for the greatest players, it also means their team preference is a larger factor (because all teams are essentially offering them similar salaries).

Do you see how this works? The Warriors are taking advantage of this, and why shouldn’t they, and everything the league does to try to stop this possibility only makes it easier and more appealing to do.

I will remind everybody that the Warriors were in a similar unattractive place several years ago, in the Cohan ownership and the beginnings of the Lacob/Guber timeline, despite their Bay Area location, because they had a terrible reputation.

没人。所以工资帽做的事情是：限制了薪水，尤其是最好的球员的薪水，也就是说好的球员基本上赚得和最伟大的球员一样多，这对最伟大的球员来说并不好，也就意味着球队的选择是一个很大的因素（因为所有的球队基本上提供的都是一样的薪水）。

你明白这是如何起作用的了么？勇士正在利用这个，而且为什么不呢，联盟做的所有为了阻止超级球队的事情只是使得这些更容易，而且更有吸引力。

我会提醒你们勇士几年前在柯汉时代以及拉克布/古伯开始时就处于一个相似的没有吸引力的境地，就是因为他们有一个糟糕的名声，湾区的地理位置也帮不到他们。

Then things changed, Lacob and Guber started putting the pieces together and took full advantage of the area’s connections to Silicon Valley and everything else, and now the Warriors are the marquee team in the league and able to…

-Lure the best free agents and interestingly the first one they got, in a sign-and-trade, was Iguodala in 2013; he started the cycle that renewed itself this July;

-Keep at least one of them for far below his market rate because he wanted to stay and to help maintain the full roster core.

然后事情慢慢就变了，拉克布和古伯开始让球队走上正轨，并且充分利用了与硅谷的关系以及其他，如今勇士成了联盟中鼎鼎大名的球队并且能够...

-吸引最优秀的自由球员，有趣的是他们得到的第一个就是2013年先签后换的伊戈达拉，今年7月他续约了。

-用低于市场价的合同留下他们中的至少一个，因为他们想要留下并帮助维持主要的轮换。

• I will get into this later, but yes, the recent wave of signings push the Warriors over the $125M luxury-tax apron line, and there are consequences, which they knew and wanted to avoid.

They didn’t avoid it — that Livingston deal pretty much guaranteed that the Warriors will fly over the $125M number, which is why I thought they might let him go; but they kept him and going over the apron is the price they paid to keep it together.

I have the Warriors at about $126M in salary commitments to 11 players (counting unsigned draftee Jordan Bell).

我稍后会细说这个，但没错，勇士最近的签约潮已经使得自己的薪资总额超过了1.25亿美元的土豪线，他们明白并且希望避免这带来的后果。

他们并没有避免——利文斯顿的合同基本上也就保证了勇士的薪资会超过1.25亿美元，这也是我认为他们会放弃利文斯顿的原因；但他们留下了他，超过土豪线也就是他们为了维持阵容付出的代价。

我预计勇士的薪资目前在1.26亿美元左右，包括了11名球员，其中有还未签约的新秀乔丹贝尔。

To fill their roster (max number is 15 players), even using low salaries (and I’m assuming they’ll use at least a few non-minimums to grab a center and an experienced guard), the sensible minimum they could realistically end up at is around $135M right now, I think.

Might be a tick lower, but around there, and if they have to spend a little more of their taxpayer mid-level exception than they want for somebody like Nick Young or a workable starting center, then it will definitely bump against the presumed $139.999M line.

Or go over. I’m not saying they can’t get to $140M, but I’m saying it sets up for them to work this right around there.

为了填满阵容（最多15名球员），即使使用底薪（我认为他们会至少用一些非底薪去签一个中锋以及一个有经验的后卫），我认为他们最终的薪水最低也在1.35亿美元左右。

可能会稍低一点，但差不多。并且如果勇士不得不使用更多的中产特例来签下尼克-杨或者可用的首发中锋，那么他们的薪资肯定会跳到之前假设的1.39999亿美元的线。

或者超过。我不是说他们不能达到1.4亿美元，我是说这是他们开始一切工作的基础。

• The main consequence of going over the tax apron is that it hard-caps a team. The Warriors can still add players at minimum levels under hard-cap but when you’re hard-capped, you lose:

-The ability to take players in sign-and-trades;

-The biannual exception ($3.3M this year);

-Protection from the “Gilbert Arenas Rule” for second-round draft picks coming up for their next contract… which would solely in this case mean Patrick McCaw, due to become a free agent next July.

• 超过土豪线的主要后果是球队受硬工资帽限制。在硬工资帽以下勇士依旧可以得到球员，但如果被硬工资帽限制，你将失去：

-用签换得到球员的能力；

-双年特例（今年是330万美元）；

-二轮秀在下一份合同的“基尔伯特-阿里纳斯条款”的保护，针对明年7月成为自由球员的帕特里克-麦考。

McCaw is the big deal here and as this payroll explodes, there is no doubt that the Warriors will want to keep McCaw, presuming everything goes well in his second season.

If they’re hard-capped next July, that would almost guarantee losing McCaw because they couldn’t match any kind of market-rate offer.

I’m not going to get into the deeper details here and now, plus I don’t want to bug some of my favorite salary-cap experts on the holiday, but the way I’m reading the CBA (as always, thanks Larry Coon!)…

麦考如今很重要，当工资爆炸，毫无疑问勇士希望能留下麦考，假设他的第二个赛季一切正常。

如果明年7月他们受到硬工资帽限制，那么基本上也就意味着勇士会失去麦考，因为他们肯定无法匹配任何市场价的合同。

我不会再往下细究了而且我也不想在假期再去打扰我最喜欢的薪资-工资帽专家了（感谢拉里-柯恩），但我读CBA（译者注：劳资协定）之后...

But I see several ways the Warriors could get themselves below the projected apron line of $129M next July, and out of the hard cap, which would maintain their Arenas rights on McCaw.

Some of them involve Durant’s contract number and it gets complicated. More on this in a later item.

Generally, it won’t be super-easy to get below the apron and therefore maintain their Arenas rights on McCaw, but I don’t think it’s impossible and in fact I would predict that the Warriors already know they can do this.

我看到了一些勇士可以将薪资降到明年7月预计的土豪线1.29亿美元之下，从而摆脱硬工资帽限制，保留麦考的阿里纳斯条款的方式。

其中的一些涉及到杜兰特的合同数字，并且很复杂。以后再讨论这个。

大致上来说，降到土豪线以下并保留麦考的阿里纳斯条款不会很容易，但我认为不是不可能，而且事实上我觉得勇士应该已经知道他们可以做到。